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 October 2022
A Humming Song of Hallelujah
I’m a couple weeks behind the amazing Autumn leaf color-fest here in Minnesota—by now, most have fallen to the ground. But social displays of wonder are preempted by occurrences of life, death, and life. The possibility of losing a loved one (and I want to add the word ‘again’) grabs one’s attention from the mundane day-to-day as well as the seasonal wonder. It focuses our attention on the past, on the relationship, and on the absolute and pure preciousness of a person. When death is on deck, it changes things.
I was emotionally exhausted when we came back from Missouri. Everything tends to grind to a halt for me as I try to process everything that has happened. The first day back I was rather catatonic—I didn’t move much, and my thinking about anything was blurry and scattered. I sat outside and let the sunlight sink into my skin. The following weekend, Chris and I journeyed to the golden cathedral of a Maple forest. A forest of mostly Sugar Maples turns the most brilliant yellow-gold in those fleeting days of Autumn color. Being a prairie girl, it was an extraordinary delight when I first went to the Maples of Lake Maria State Park in the fall of 2014 and wrote ” The Trees Were Glowing.” Every year since then, we find a Maple forest in which to bathe in the ethereal glow of the gilded leaves.
The day was cloudy, which made for a different kind of glow. No rays of sunlight danced on the leaves and slipped to the leaf-covered forest floor. The cloudy light was reflected back and forth from leaf to leaf like a humming song filling the air.
A relatively ‘young’ part of the forest had tall, straight-trunked trees, like a colossal choir dressed in robes of gold, swaying to the humming song.
Two large rocks at the base of two older-barked trees, along with a flexible, bent-over young Maple, created an alter of sorts. We pray for the souls of our loved ones.
With awe, we stood by the Grandmother and Grandfather Maples whose branches reached out wide and tall, proclaiming their time-honored wisdom. Like all elders, they deserve respect for all they have seen, all they have lived through, and all the hardships they have survived.
Pines shed a certain number of needles each fall, usually from the interior of the branches. Their winged pairs often get caught on other foliage, as do the bright-colored leaves.
We came to a clearing in the forest where Sumacs grew along the edges, happy in the more abundant sunshine. The deep red leaves are a sharp contrast to the golden Sugar Maple leaves. Sumacs are one of the first to change color, so by this time, many had already lost their leaves. But in contrast to most other shrubs and trees, they retain their striking brick-red seedheads throughout the winter.
The younger stems are fuzzy and pink, and after the leaves drop, look like arms raised in hallelujah!
Tucked into a little valley that protected the Sumac from leaf-dropping wind, was a spectacular display of a community of trees of all colors, sizes, and shapes! In the center of the fall color was an Eastern Red Cedar with a shine of gray-blue ‘berries’ (actually small cones) dusted on its branches.
We walked back into the forest where even an uprooted tree looked like a woodland sculpture with the background of golden leaves.
One part of the trail had beautiful red-leaved Maples that added to the color palette of our rustling footsteps.
Then before we left, the clouds broke away, and the sun flooded the golden cathedral with shimmering light!
Death was a swing and a miss this time around, thank the Good Lord, but all the feelings and sensations of uncertainty, compassion, love, loss, and grief took us on a roller-coaster ride. It’s funny how we are never quite prepared for it, even when we’ve been in similar circumstances before. It’s like the forest coming alive with golden light as the leaves are dying—life, death, and life again. We tend to take for granted the long Summer of green when all is well, then panic and wail a bit when leaves change and fall. Mother Nature has shown us time and time again that that is not the end of the story. As people of faith and mercy, we believe that, but as people of doubt and confusion, we constantly need reassurance that it will be so. So in the aftermath of such a roller-coaster of emotions, it is a healing balm to walk into the golden cathedral forest, to be surrounded and blessed by gilded light, and to raise our arms and hearts, along with the trees, in a humming song of Hallelujah.
Mesmerizing Middle
I’m going to begin in the middle. In the middle of our hike, that is. And only for one photograph, one minute of time, one funny little revelation. It inspires all of my hikes, and with reflection, it really is the basis of why I take photos, write this blog, and share it with you all. We walked across a ‘floating’ wooden bridge over an inlet to a shallow pond halfway through our hike at Mississippi River County Park. Duckweed has been covering the slow-moving inlet water and much of the pond for months now. On this day and all those going forward into Autumn, leaves had fallen onto the thick duckweed, creating a collage. I peered over the edge of the bridge, staring into the pea-soup green water. Since the bridge ‘floats’ on top of the water, every movement we made radiated out into the water and duckweed, producing movement and patterns through the bright green medium. “This is kind of mesmerizing,” I told my patiently waiting husband. With his usual dry humor, Chris broke my nature-spell by proclaiming his take on it all, “Makes me want to jump in and go for a swim!” I laughed at the absurdity of it, imagining his rising from the water as the incredible green hulk!
Nature is mesmerizing for me. I see things and wonder…who lives here? How did the tree die? How many young ones have fledged from this high-rise home?
Look at this pearly shell! Scooped up by the water from the sandy shore and placed on this rock for a moment in the long trend of time until a bigger wave sweeps it back to the Mississippi waters.
Seaweed and floating Willow leaves have their own kind of enchantment as the waves move through them.
In the full green of Summer, vines are often overlooked, but at this time of year, they show themselves with changing colors, as with red Virginia Creeper, orange-berried Bittersweet, or yellowing Wild Cucumber. Wild Grape vines and Wild or Bur Cucumber vines can absolutely enshroud all other vegetation or structures with their robust twining and climbing. As some of the other leaves fall, Canada Moonseed vine comes into its own with hanging purple fruit that looks a bit like edible Wild Grapes, but in actuality, is poisonous.
Another common vine is Virgin’s Bower. It is a type of wild Clematis with indistinct, small white flowers. Its fruit and seedheads are the fascinating part of this vine—the wispy tails of the fruit dry into puffs that inspire its common name of Old Man’s Beard.
In the middle of summer, Mississippi River County Park becomes very monochromatic and homogeneous after its enthralling Spring of woodland/floodplain flowers. Few plants are blooming, trails can be wet with rain and heavy with mosquitoes, and the cons often outweigh the pros for hiking there. But Autumn comes, and the park once again embraces its color and beauty.
The shallow pond in the middle of the park reflects the golden trees, provides a home for Painted Turtles, and grows Monet-worthy Lily Pads.
Colors of all shades and hues begin to pop out of the greenery. The process of the energy-producing shutdown that happens to most plants in the Northland is fascinating!
And then there’s the Sunlight. It shines on the color, over the brown seedheads of Monarda and Indian Grass, and through the green leaves of Stiff Goldenrod and others. It is the fire that fuels Spring growth, Summer production, and Fall decline. It entrances us because the Sun is just as important to us as to the plants.
Poet extraordinaire Mary Oliver wrote: “Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” It is the way I live my life. It is the reason I started North Star Nature. It is my fascination with all the mesmerizing aspects of Nature that impel me to write my blog week after week for over eight and a half years now. To my readers, I thank you and hope you have been astonished along with me. Nature deserves your attention. It deserves your love. It deserves your caregiving. I hope you have an enchanting Autumn!