Come walk with me in the peak Autumn beauty of the Northwoods. To say that I love this time of year is an understatement. Most everyone can appreciate the colorful falling leaves---it reveals the 'true self' of a tree when its leaves are no longer producing chlorophyll. Their true colors are revealed, and there is something simple … [Read More...]
Archives for September 2015
Welcome to the Season of Preparation
Moving a household of five people after nine or twelve years in one spot takes some preparation. Even more so if one does not easily get rid of things from the past–“But I love this picture she did when she was four–remember how early she held a pencil just right?” or “This showcased her musical talent–she played it so easily when she was little” or ” These plastic snakes were his favorite things when he was three–we should keep them for grandkids.” So, we did this twice in our lives–and we still have the picture, the instrument, and the snakes. I was fairly good at the preparation–I loved the neat stacks of boxes that accumulated against the wall as the closets and cupboards emptied, and I even felt a swift satisfaction with the large give-away and throw-away piles. But as moving day was in sight, I would hit a wall. Like a stubborn horse who will not move forward, I would find myself sitting back on my haunches and stiffening my neck–all of a sudden, I didn’t want this to happen! My mental preparation hadn’t kept up with my physical preparation.
Of the four seasons, Fall is the season for preparation. Spring brings many changes as it tumbles into Summer, but it seems joyful and effortless. Autumn slowly, methodically prepares us for Winter. And with that preparation comes paradox. Harvest of apples, pumpkins, potatoes, carrots, beets, and squash showers us with abundance and food for the coming months while drying and dying vines and grasshopper-eaten leaves wither and eventually freeze.
Brilliant beautiful leaves inspire us and make us breathe deeply of the clear, crisp air–before they fall from the trees leaving bare branches and emptiness.
Animals prepare their nests, bodies, and food piles for Winter, and some become food for us.
Three months of waxing and waning, harvest and loss, work and rest, brilliance and decay.
Preparation–a proceeding, measure, or provision by which one prepares for something. Mother Nature prepares us, the animals, and the plants for Winter and all that comes with that in the North of North America. A proceeding, step by step, into the lenten season of dormancy.
My balking when the moves became inevitable illustrates my sudden realization of the losses I was about to incur–the loss of good friendships and family get-togethers, the loss of our home, jam-packed with memories of the kids growing up, the loss of every bit of work we did to make our place better than it was when we got there. My quarter-moon readiness illuminated the boxes and empty rooms, yet the darkened part, the side not seen, was not prepared and was struggling against what was to come. We work hard to prepare ourselves for certain things in our lives…and yet, sometimes, we just don’t get it all done. As my husband reminds me quite often, ‘You can only get ready for so long–pretty soon you have to leave.’ And we did leave–with loaded U-Hauls and vehicles stuffed to the brim, with tears and anticipation, with sadness and joy. The preparation carries us forward to what lies next. The time comes for us to lay our heartaches down (with all due respect to Emmylou), and we walk into the next Season of our Life.
Wonder Will Be Yours
I remember staring with wonder at each of the tiny human beings we brought home from the hospital. I couldn’t get enough of looking into their eyes, holding their perfectly plump bodies with those tiny fingers and toes, and kissing their delightful cheeks while inhaling that ambrosial baby smell. Every good force of Nature and God was involved in bringing forth these new creations to occupy our family life for a time, and the awesomeness and privilege of that is not lost on me. Not even after all these years. Especially after all these years–when they have all gone on to living their own lives.
But still, when I see my cherished children, which is not often, I find myself staring at them, looking into their adult eyes, wanting to hold their hand or push back the hair from their forehead, and longing to kiss their cheeks. Their individual worlds are separate from ours now–the way of Nature–but the wonder is still there.
There are tiny, little worlds all around us. We catch glimpses of them from time to time and our understanding is expanded by information in books, nature films, and the encyclopedic internet. We can take a closer look at these tiny worlds at almost any time. Imagine the world of the honeybee–we see them working to gather nectar and pollen, but we don’t realize how much work goes on inside the hive. Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ is an abundant source of nectar for honeybees at this time of year.
They share the joy with a pungent stink bug who raised his antennae in alarm when the honeybee flew near, but he determined that the bee was no threat to him. There was plenty of nectar to share.
Another little world lies hidden in a wild rosebush.
The bald-faced hornet, which is really a yellow jacket wasp, collects and chews wood, mixes the fibers with saliva to make pulp, and constructs a paper nest that houses comb-like nests of larvae and hundreds of worker bees.
Most everyone knows the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly. Milkweed is the host plant for the Monarch caterpillar that hatches from eggs deposited by the butterfly. The caterpillar eats milkweed until mature, then forms a hanging chrysalis.
When the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis, he leaves the Milkweed world and flies into the vast, diverse Unknown full of dangers and delights. One of the delights is the formidable Joe Pye Weed that grows up to seven feet tall and produces huge mauve pink flower heads full of vanilla sweet nectar.
While watching the butterflies and bees swarm the Joe Pye Weed, I noticed a hummingbird at the nearby Summer Sweet bush. This small native shrub is another important source of nectar for butterflies and hummingbirds, and its fragrant, bottle-brush flowers will bloom in shade.
What a summer show! The enticing, sweet blossoms and the birds, bees, and butterflies!
And then…Wonder! The Hummingbird flew over to the jeweled iridescence of the butterfly and hovered there!
I am grateful and privileged to witness such a moment in the late summer world of Joe Pye. These tiny-world moments play out all around us, most of the time without our knowing. Take some time to notice the tiny world of some part of Nature and share the Autumn Joy!
I am no longer part of the daily world of my children, though daily they are in my thoughts, my whispered prayers, my silent sending of blessings upon their adult lives. I want to remind them, and all of you, that looking into another person’s eyes connects two souls, shares our tiny worlds, and reflects the face of God. Touching another person’s hand conveys interest and caring and does wonders for our physiology. Kissing a cheek bestows a gift to the one kissed and the giver alike. Let every good force of Nature and God inspire your life as you go through your life cycle and know that the nectar of love and joy is abundant–there’s enough for everybody! And Wonder will be yours.
Working at Living
When we stepped into September, we entered the meteorological season of Fall. We are most familiar with the traditional astronomical seasons that change at the equinoxes and solstices based on the position of the Earth in relation to the Sun. Meteorological seasons change every three months and are based on similar temperatures. This different and more natural way of defining seasons began in the early to mid 1900’s, making it easier for the weather scientists to compare data and weather patterns.
It is beginning to look like Fall in central Minnesota! The poplar and ash leaves are turning yellow and falling to the ground.
Wild plum trees and creeping poison ivy are displaying beautiful autumnal colors.
Wild grapes are ready for harvesting–by humans, birds, foxes, turkeys–whoever gets to them first.
Asters and sunflowers are blooming in the ditches…
along with abundant goldenrod.
The insects and animals are busy gathering food. The squirrels have been working hard from morning til night, collecting acorns from our woods and buckeyes from the tree up the street. The Buckeye tree is one of the first to change color and lose its leaves.
The squirrels carry the nuts to a place in the yard, dig a little hole, put the nut in, cover it up with dirt, and pat it down with their front paws. How they ever find them again is beyond me–but I do know they don’t find them all, as we see oak and buckeye seedlings growing in places far from the mature trees.
The little red squirrels in particular love the white pine seeds and have labored ceaselessly to clean them from the cones, leaving a pile of debris under the tree.
Some of my work lately has been like the squirrel–I have been gathering produce from the garden and preparing it for later use. There is great purpose and satisfaction in growing, tending, eating, and storing our own food. Traditionally–at least after the industrial revolution, we have equated work with a job. But think about the work of the settlers or the native people before that–their ‘work’ was ‘living!’ And much of that work had to do with the basics–shelter, safety, food, and clothing. Of course, these days, jobs provide the means to those very same basics. I hope on this Labor Day we can look at work in different ways–people who go to jobs, moms and dads who stay home with their children, those toiling just to survive and find a safe place for their families to live, students striving to educate themselves, people who devote time and energy to inner work, those who struggle daily with addictions and illnesses who work hard to live one day at a time, and animals and insects who work at ‘being’ what they are. Blessings to all the workers of the world!
I would like to thank you for reading my posts. I work to bring you images of Nature and words that may inspire, teach, and promote contemplation. Many thanks to those who like, share, and comment–it is the primary way for my posts to reach new people. Nature can teach us about ourselves and make us better people–it’s a great way to work at living a wonderful life.
Gleanings from August 2015
August has almost always been a month of transition for me–a transition from summer back to glorious school! Don’t get me wrong–I love summer–but I have always loved the excitement and anticipation of a new school year. Maybe that’s why I have twelve years of post-secondary education under my belt. Perhaps that is why for twenty-three years we have had back-to-school parties for the kids. But this August is different–nobody’s going to school. No school supplies, no parents’ night, no new classes, no move-in days….
I have been privileged this August to be in contact with two educators of a different sort. Neither is employed at a school, but both educate children and adults alike. Both are writers and speakers who embody the message they bring.
At the beginning of the month we were lucky enough to spend time in the far north at the Steger Wilderness Center.
Will Steger was one of the first people in the world to experience the effects of climate change in his Arctic expeditions, but recently he wrote, “We are all eyewitnesses now.” While we see and experience extreme weather events like the drying and burning of our western lands, flooding rains in eastern and midwestern regions, and erratic and unusual temperatures, do we know what climate change means to the moose or the tree frogs in northern Minnesota?
photo by LAn
Do we realize what impact it has on the aquatic life of our rivers….
or the wildlife and plant life in the old-growth forests?
How does climate change and human destruction of habitat affect the intricate ecosystems of the world? And how does all of that, in turn, affect our survival?
This is where the second educator comes in–we have to teach our children to love the natural world–even the people who are not directly exposed to it. At the end of August we attended a concert by local author and musician Douglas Wood. His books are well-known–Old Turtle, Grandad’s Prayers of the Earth and dozens of others for children. He has written inspiring little handbooks for adults, too. As a musician and song writer, Doug Wood also expresses his love for Nature and our Earth to the people who hear him sing and play beautiful acoustic instruments.
August brings flowers that are striking for their beauty like these Black-eyed Susans…
and for their beauty plus function, such as Purple Coneflowers (Echinacea) that have been used as an herbal remedy for flu and colds for hundreds of years.
August supplies us with food from our cultivated gardens and food from the wild Plum trees.
Mother Nature somehow uses temperature and humidity to synchronize August ‘nuptial flights’ when winged princess and drone ants leave their colonies and take to the sky to mate. The patch of grass in our yard seemed to be shifting and moving as the ants crawled to the tip of the grass blades to fly away from their nest to ensure outbreeding. The females store the sperm in a ‘sperm pocket’ that will eventually fertilize tens of millions of eggs over her lifetime, the male drones die after mating, and the survival of the colony goes on.
August is the month of new school years and new beginnings. Education is the foundation for our lives–the more we learn, the better able we are to understand the balance that Nature brings to our lives and to the lives of all the plants and creatures on the Earth. Doug Wood educates with his books and music–he teaches us to know and love the natural world. Will Steger educates with his explorations, writings, and living example–he reminds us that it is our moral responsibility to be good stewards of our Earth and to build a sustainable future for our children. We take care of the things we love. Learn to know and love Nature, for it is when we love something that we can move beyond ourselves in caring, in responsibility, and in action. And then, as Douglas Wood wrote in Old Turtle, Old Turtle and God will smile.