NorthStarNature

Appreciating the Beauty and Wisdom of Nature

You are here: Home / 2018 / Archives for June 2018

Archives for June 2018

Summer Solstice Snapshot

by Leave a Comment

What happens on the first day of Summer?  The Summer Solstice was Thursday, the 21st—the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, when the Earth’s axis is most tilted toward the sun.  It is when the sun rises before most of us do and sets not long before most of us go to bed.  It is a day of long daylight, of energy, of evolution of the seasons.  It is a day of new beginnings.  

What happens on the first day of Summer in Minnesota?  Fruit is forming, growing, and ripening—apples, blueberries, wild plums, and wild strawberries.

Tender new growth on the evergreen trees is starting to harden off, easing into the next stage of growth and development, stepping into its larger self.

Summer sunshine, blue skies, and white clouds outline and energize the trees.

On the first day of Summer, some flowers, like the Gas Plant, are already going to seed, while a whole passel are in full bloom or getting ready to bloom.

The late-planted garden is growing, as are the weeds that will need to be cleared out so the good stuff will grow and produce.

Bird parents are busy searching for insects to bring back to their hungry babies.

Broken remains of storm damage finally fell from a tree, days after the other storm debris had been cleaned up.

And then, just for a reality check, Summer throws in a little taste of what’s to come in a couple of months…

 Late in the long day, the sun finally sets, the long twilight glows on, and the moon shines bright in the southern sky.

 

One notable Summer day, the Solstice, the official beginning of Summer, is like a birthday—remarkable in a way, but as common as every other day.  It is a marker of seasons and new beginnings, a snapshot of the continuing development of all that is Nature and all that is Us.  If we take the time to clear out the weeds and clean up the debris from the storms of our lives, we are energized.  We can learn and grow and step into our larger selves.  We are ready to bloom and ready to bear fruit.  Shine on!

 

The Branches of My Being

by 2 Comments

When I was a child, supple-muscled and fresh-faced, I had my own room.  It had blue walls, blue and white curtains and bedspread, and white furniture with gold trim.  I made my bed every morning and had all my treasures arranged on my dressers just so.  I liked to keep things neat and tidy.  Cleaning was a Saturday morning ritual not to be messed with, and I learned to be thorough and efficient (because the ‘fun’ stuff could only be done after the cleaning.)  It also became a meditation of sorts, with my body moving through the mundane motions while my young mind processed all the thoughts and e-motions of my life.

Even though decades of raising three kids and an aging body have softened my ‘neat freak’ mind, I still like to clean and keep things in order.  So I have been particularly bothered these past years by the dead branches that hang from some of the trees in the yard and the woods.  I look at them and feel compelled to trim away the dead, thinking they would look so much better.  But my tree-man husband puts off my compelling aesthetic arguments for the sake of the trees.  Certain trees and shrubs should only be trimmed at certain times of the year in order to preserve the health of the tree or to promote blooming.  Not only when the leaves are looking pretty and one is simply bothered by low- or dead-hanging branches!  Then when the leaves are gone, I don’t even notice the dead ones on the bare silhouette of the tree!  So the dead branches remain, and like any other thorn under our skin that we live with, our relationship with it changes.

The reason this old Oak tree has some dead branches is because of a physiological phenomenon called self-pruning.  When a branch does not produce as much carbohydrate by photosynthesis as it uses in respiration, food, minerals and water are withheld from the branch.  The tree seals off the limb with resins, and the branch eventually dies.

Access to light is the most important reason for self-pruning.  Trees that grow in open areas rarely shed their branches for this reason, but trees that grow in the woods do not have enough light to maintain all the branches.  Self-pruning happens frequently with small twigs, and as the crown of a tree gets bigger, the large, lower branches may also die.

Shade intolerant trees like Aspen, Paper Birch, Red Pine, Elm, and Ash are known for sequestering food from lower branches, causing them to die.  The actual shedding of the dead branch occurs over time as it weakens from water, fungi, and insects and then comes down with wind, snow, or animals.

In a forest of Red Pines, the lower dead branches are of varying lengths with many short, truncated staubs that look like steps up the straight trunk of the tree.

 

The dead branches, those thorns under my neat-freak skin, no longer bother me like they once did.  Now I see them as an essential part of the story of the tree.  They are expressive parts of the younger tree, when the sun shone strong and bright, when nothing impaired its growth and vitality.  They are part of the history of the tree.  Just like us.  We have these parts of ourselves from our younger, growing self and life that die and get truncated.  We don’t have to cut them away, no longer to be seen or thought of again.  Each is an essential part of our stories.  I still put my treasures on the dressers just so—they are even the same dressers, though the white and gold paint was stripped off to reveal the mahogany wood underneath.  Every past interest, friend, longing, hobby, and experience are all branches of my being.

Unexpected Gifts

by 6 Comments

Life is always bringing unexpected gifts.   –May Sarton

I celebrated my birthday this past week—one of those decade ones that seem like kind of a big deal.  The big deal is usually a combination of ‘how can I be this old when I don’t feel like it’ and a very real realization that there is much more life behind one’s self than there is yet to be.  But I choose to make the big deal be a celebration of making it to six decades, because we are fortunate to do so.  So the big deal was mostly in my head.  There was no party planned or expectations on my part.  Then, the day before my birthday, my circle of amazing women friends brought a cake, complete with candles to wish upon and blow out, and sang Happy Birthday to me!  The next day another special friend took me out for lunch, and hours flew by like minutes.  I received cards, presents, Happy Birthday texts and messages, phone calls, and had supper with my dear Chris.  To tell you the truth, I was pleasantly overwhelmed by the unexpected gifts.  I was happy and content as I drank my cup of evening tea.  Just before darkness fell, I went to the kitchen to rinse out my cup and looked out the window.  A Gray Fox was stalking around the front yard, staring into the grass, then pouncing on some little morsel of insect food.  Another unexpected gift for my birthday!  

It’s not often that we see foxes—in the winter, we see their tracks, and at times have seen a glimpse of one as it slips into the woods.  But this beautiful Gray Fox seemed unconcerned that he was out in the open of the yard with plenty of light to see him.

Gray Foxes are members of the canine family, but interestingly, they can climb trees!  Their short, strong legs and extremely sharp, curved claws allow them to climb and jump from branch to branch.  They can descend either tail or head first.  Thus they are known as the tree fox!

Gray Foxes mate for life, have an average litter of four pups or kits in April or May (in Minnesota), and the pups are raised by both the parents.  They have keen eyesight and excellent hearing and smell.  They stalk and pounce on voles, mice, squirrels, and especially love cottontail rabbits.  They also eat small birds, eggs, plants, berries, and insects.

These beautiful creatures have a black stripe down their back and tail ending with a black tip.  The back of their ears and neck are the tawny red color of a Red Fox.

 

I was so pleased to see this fox on my birthday!  What an fantastic creature!  I was pleased to hear from my family and from old friends who I haven’t seen in years but who hold a special place in my heart.  I was happy to share time and laughs with new friends who love books, love God, and love me.  What an incredible gift!  There’s something kind of fantastic about that, isn’t there, Mr Fox?!

The Mirror of Nature and Goodness

by 2 Comments

Water is the mirror of Nature.  –Francis of Assisi

What happens when you see a person walking toward you unexpectedly get hit in the head by a ball?  Often we react with a cringe, a movement of our hand to our own head, or even with a verbal “ouch”—almost like we ourselves had gotten hit.  The mechanism for that occurrence is the activation of mirror neurons in our brains.  Mirror neurons were discovered in 1994 by a group of Italian scientists in a lucky accident.  They were studying individual neurons in a monkey’s premotor area of the brain, with a computer to monitor which neurons fired when the monkey picked up a peanut or banana.  The researcher noticed that when he was putting food pellets into a box, the computer showed that the monkey’s brain cells were firing, even though the monkey wasn’t moving!  He was watching the researcher move and reacting as if he were picking up the food pellets himself.  Research on mirror neurons continues, but it is now understood that these brain-to-brain links help to explain empathy, learning, imitation, and synchrony.  These brain cells are ‘online’ at birth and are an imperative part of how a baby and caretaker communicate with one another, how they regulate their respective physiologies, and how the baby learns—e.g., cooing and making sounds and words, playing peek-a-boo, facial expressions, and comforting tones and movements.  We are, in essence, programmed to pick up another person’s movements, emotions, and intentions and to make internal adjustments based on what we notice.  We also give clues to others about what is going on inside of us.

After a hot Memorial Day weekend, Tuesday’s storm broke the heat wave and brought us some much-needed rain.  As the storm was ending, the western horizon cleared, and the sun shone through the trees.  I went out the back door with the camera to photograph the colorful sunset, but what caught my attention was the birdbath.  The water in the birdbath was a mirror not only to the colors of the sunset but also a reflection of the wind and remaining raindrops!  It was mesmerizing!

 

Twenty-two photographs over four minutes of time.  Subtleties of color, shade, tone, and movement.  Each one the same, but different.  Each one mirroring a moment in Nature, reflecting the wind, the rain, and the sunlight.  We exhibit just as many cues and clues in four minutes of our time with subtle movements, facial expressions, muscle tightening, eye contact, voice tone, and posture.  Those around us are picking up those cues and clues via their mirror neurons and reacting to them based on the person’s development history, sense of safety, and state of mind and body (all of which can change the message in profound ways.)  And most of this is happening with little or no conscious awareness.  The challenge is not to be vulnerable to negativity in others, not to meet anger with anger or disdain with disdain, yet at the same time retain the empathy that keeps us connected as social beings.  What a challenge it is.  It does give credence to our moms’ warnings not to hang out with the wrong crowd—we tend to become like the people we choose to be around; she just didn’t know it was because of mirror neurons!  We have an opportunity to positively influence the people around us and the strangers we meet—we can look into their eyes and smile, we can open our hands and our hearts, we can make them feel welcomed, safe, and supported.  Our face and actions can be a mirror of Goodness, and that, dear ones, is mesmerizing.