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Curiosity of an Explorer

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I’m a homebody in many ways—I love being home and even eschew the idea of leaving for an evening activity once supper and dishes are done. I am usually content with my routine. But I do get an explorer’s thrill when we plan to go to a new place in Nature! The Latin root for explore is ‘explorare,’ meaning to investigate or search out. We had heard that Savanna Portage State Park was a beautiful and interesting place, so Chris had gotten reservations for us weeks ago. He loves the anticipation of a planned trip even as I get a bit nervous about leaving home. But once I’m in the car with a map in hand (sorry Google Maps), I forget about leaving home and look forward to exploring and learning about a new place.

In just over two hours, we pulled in to Savanna Portage State Park, which is in the middle of the expansive Savanna State Forest. Commence our journey of exploration of the Wilderness! There are a number of characteristics according to exploreratlarge.org that define the mentality of an explorer, the first of which is curiosity. What will we see? What will we experience? I was hoping for a chance encounter with a Moose—will I see one? Our first hike was around Loon Lake trail. Loon Lake is a designated trout lake, just a mile or so in circumference, and the trail hugged the lake shore. Come explore with me!

The lake was calm with the slightest breeze occasionally rippling the mirror-like water. Autumn had begun—the Maple trees were beginning to turn color, red reflected on water and leaves falling on the trail.

Large, old Pine trees, White and Red, gripped the ground with their massive roots. A frog was our first creature to be found.

I was delighted to see Wintergreen growing beside the trail, its berries beginning to turn red, its leaves pungent with the flavor we associate with chewing gum or toothpaste. (It was the original source of that flavor which is now mostly synthetic.)

One Pine tree embedded in the lake now reflects arrows that point the way.

Along with the Wintergreen, a number of different species of Clubmosses grew and flowered like little evergreen trees.

The rooted trail led us to, then past a collection of golden-morphing Ferns—so beautiful!

Form and shape, color and contrast, reflections and realities all help us appreciate the diverse plant life in any given environment.

Many of the branches and trees that had fallen into the lake had become floating ‘treeariums,’ growing with mosses, ferns, shrubs, and other plants. Each created its own little environment, some used by the swimming creatures as a resting place.

Along with curiosity, an explorer must use discernment and logic. What are these white piles of dried-up scat from? Looking more closely, the white pieces were bones and pink-tinged shells, probably from crayfish. My guess of otter scat was substantiated when we saw a grass-flattened ‘slide’ from the hillside into the lake! We saw many slides and many piles of territory-marking ‘spraints,’ as otter scat is called.

A very industrious and disillusioned Beaver lived here some time ago. The tree was working to heal that gaping beaver wound.

At times along the trail, a small grove of Pines bordered the lake and path. What beauty in the bark of a mature Red Pine!

Balsam Firs were the other evergreens of the forest along with the Pines. Most were younger and content to grow in the shade of the canopy trees. An orange fungus was a colorful surprise!

Another rather startling discovery was a dead Snapping Turtle, upside-down, over a log. I wondered how he got there. Adult Snappers are sometimes attacked by otters, bears, or coyotes, so that was definitely a possibility. But then we saw a live monster-of-a-turtle swimming in the lake and wondered if the males fight one another.

More ‘treeariums,’ golden ferns, and red leaves decorated the Loon Lake trail as we circled around it. (No Loons to be seen, but we did find a beaver lodge.)

Towards the end of the trail, a large White Pine had tipped over into the water. The root ball was covered with Otter spraints, and we imagined they used the tree as a playground. Playfulness is another quality of an explorer, as expertly embodied by Otters running and sliding, swimming, rolling, and playing.

I fully embrace being a homebody and an explorer of Nature. Each of us has these seemingly opposing qualities in one way or another. Yet I have always lived my life with curiosity and wonder (another quality of an explorer). It has been the foundation of my learning, schooling, and being a scientist, as well as being an explorer. In my next posts, I will share other trails we hiked at Savanna Portage and other qualities of being an explorer. Until then, what kind of explorer are you?

River Dance

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Countless times I have walked the riverside trail at Mississippi River County Park. I have seen the River’s bank and the boat launch during the ice and snow of Winter, the overflowing water of Spring, and the drought of Summer. I know where the low spots are that stay muddy and mosquito-laden, where certain flowers grow, and where the deer like to graze. I am also familiar with Bend in the River Park on the other side of the River with its canopy of Oaks on the high bluffs that overlook the Mighty Mississippi. On Saturday of Labor Day weekend, I saw the River from the River’s point of view. Chris, Emily, and I launched our trusty Alumacraft canoe into the softly-rippling water. I was the duffer—not the desirable position, especially for my sixty year old joints, but a needed one when canoeing as a trio. I sat on a floatation cushion in the middle, on the bottom of the canoe, while the more experienced paddlers took their seats.

The water was low from our ongoing drought. Little beaches of sand appeared in places, many unseen from the land above them. While logs that have fallen into or floated down the River could be seen from the park trail, from the River’s view, they became an integral part of the boundary between water and land—they were much more noticeable, more usable, and more artistic.

Some of the shallow parts of the River were a horizontal painting of aquatic plants and algaes that dragged the bottom of the canoe and slowed the competent paddling of Emily and Chris.

Other shallow parts were clear and glowing with golden sunlight that revealed millions of fragments of mollusk shells and often a complete bivalve pearlized shell. A whole new world of underwater life not seen from the land-side.

Beautiful blossoms of Purple Loosestrife populated the islands. It is not a desirable plant for wetlands, lakes, and rivers and is categorized as invasive and noxious. They have thick, woody roots that form a dense web that can block natural drainage areas and outcompete native plants.

Native Willows thrive with their feet in the water and provide shelter for many of the inhabitants that live along the River.

A young Belted Kingfisher flew among the branches along the bank. Her crested head and distinct breast feathers identified the small fish-eater.

Another well-camouflaged water bird, a Green Heron, posed on a fallen log like a museum display. No movement, anonymity, and hopes of not being detected—all natural behaviors to enhance their food-finding fishing.

Joe-Pye Weed grew along the banks, their rosy clusters of flowers an important source of nectar for butterflies and bees at this time of year.

Another late summer flower to adorn the banks is Sneezeweed, a member of the Aster family. Its bright yellow petals and yellow-green ball-like centers make a cheery sight along with sunflowers in the green expanse of riverbank.

We paddled for three and a half to four miles; our goal was the dock of friends of ours who live down the road from us. The downstream current was negligible since rain had been so scarce the whole summer and the southeast wind blew the waves against us. Seeing the landscape from the River’s viewpoint in our relatively slow-moving craft was a peaceful gift in the late-summer morning.

We circled around the north side of an island away from the channel where boats and jet-skis were beginning to make waves. I saw a Great Blue Heron standing in the shallow water, and we stopped paddling to watch the Great Bird on this Great River. We watched a slow-motion dance, beginning with a bow. Its long neck and long legs curved and bobbed, lifted and stretched, pranced and turned until it finished with a flair, standing tall and elegant on its home stage.

We left the island performance and concentrated on reaching our goal as the sun shone hotter, the River became busier with boats, and my legs grew stiff and tingly from inaction.

Goose down feathers floating on the algae and water

Our River trek took two and a half hours. Emily expertly landed us beside our friends’ dock. I awkwardly unfolded my legs from the bottom of the canoe and tried to move my uncooperating hips over the canoe seat while ‘staying low,’ in order to get to the ladder. Let’s just say I was not as graceful as a Great Blue Heron. But our canoe trek was the highlight of my weekend. It was wonderful to see this familiar River from ‘the other side,’ from the River’s point of view. There are so many things we miss or even dismiss when we look at some thing or some body or some issue only from the safe, familiar bank we are used to. Even the fast-boat river riders see and experience the River differently than the canoers and kayakers. It is an issue as old as time. Walk a mile in my shoes; paddle a mile (or three) in my canoe; work a day in my job; live a day in my skin. All impel us to live in empathy and understanding of people who are different from us and who experience life from a very different island of reference. I hope the River Dance reminds us all to live in empathy, peace, and grace.

The Story of Life in One Leaf

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I found the story of a life all in one leaf on our hike last weekend. It comes fairly close to my life at the age I find myself—certainly not the age I feel myself to be. If one is younger, the leaf would be much more green; if older, perhaps more black, and yet, within us all are all the colors. My young green has faded, but it is still there. Childhood memories are green, as is my curiosity and those times when I laugh at something unexpected and childishly delightful.

On the narrow trail of our hike was a lush stand of ferns near a life-giving wetland. The drought continues in central Minnesota, yet the wetland provided the mother’s milk for the surrounding plants. The vegetation was green, vibrant, and in some cases, flowering.

Swamp Aster

Green is suppleness and flexibility like the Leatherwood shrub. Those parts of youth may have stiffened with age, but body practices like yoga and qigong can help reverse, or at least keep at bay, that stiffening.

Young adulthood is green and yellow, a complex intermingling of growth and stability, of space and closeness, of venturing out on one’s own and clinging tightly to loved ones. It is a time for flowering. I still have yellow in my life.

Big Leaf Aster

Yellow morphs into red, into maturity, into production, into fruit bearing. Life in the red zone is busy, noisy, urgent, and full of life. I find that again when in the presence of the fruit that I bore.

Acorns
Virginia Creeper
Jack-in-the-Pulpit fruit

Brown creeps in to the red zone, slowing the busy, quieting the noisy, easing the urgent. It is a rich time. I’m glad my second favorite color is brown.

Black inches into our lives, sometimes with a crash, sometimes from our center even as our growing edge is still pure and white. Black is unexpected, usually unwanted, but confoundingly inevitable.

How do we befriend it? As I roam in the red-brown zone, it becomes more clear to me that the journey through the Black Spruce forest is a time of mystery and wonder. We can turn old age into new age—not our mortal bodies but our immortal souls. So I plan to walk down that boggy path with awareness, through shadows and light, breathing in the mind-enlightening smell of evergreen boughs, into Goodness and Light.

Black Spruce forest

Sky and Prairie Partners

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There is something about a prairie in the high months of Summer. The sun is warm, the wind is cooling, and the sky is a partner to the rolling hills of waving grasses. It’s a great place to roam where the mosquitoes prefer not to tread. There is another insect, however, that will garner your attention—the leaping, jumping, bumping-into-shins antics of August grasshoppers. I find them much easier to ‘take’ than biting, swarming mosquitoes. We found this new prairie after hiking miles of trails through a forest. There were patches of wetlands with cattails and Blue Vervain, and along the trail, we found random boulders of granite that established themselves as a grounding focal point in the swaying vegetation.

The Maple tree forest delivered the news of drought and of the coming change of seasons. Already in mid-August, the signs are there—Summer is waning.

The meeting of sky and prairie is an open invitation to experience freedom.

The restored prairie was relatively new, as the Canada Wild Rye was tall and abundant, its curving seedheads nodding in the breeze. Canada Wild Rye is a native, fast-growing perennial bunchgrass that is used as a ‘nurse’ crop for restored prairies. Nurse crops offer protection for the slower germinating grasses and wildflowers while they develop and get established. Nurse crops can provide erosion control, furnish wind, frost, and sun protection for young seedlings, and suppress weeds. Eventually, as the other grasses and wildflowers become more established, the Rye grass will gradually disappear.

There were other grasses maturing into seedheads—Timothy grass (above) and Sideoats Grama (below).

Daisy Fleabane, a bouquet of tiny daisies all in one plant, were scattered throughout the prairie, along with some spent Wild Monarda, Black-eyed Susans, and newly blooming Stiff Goldenrods.

Daisy Fleabane
Pink leaves of spent Wild Monarda
Spent seedhead of Wild Monarda
Black-eyed Susans
Stiff Goldenrods with Canada Wild Rye

Blue Vervain likes to grow near the wetlands, and the brown, cylindrical flowers of cattails are food for the grasshoppers. Long-legged Leopard frogs leapt across the trail when we neared the lowlands.

The trail led us back into the woods where Maple seedlings covered the forest floor, pink-leaved asters tried to bloom, and boulders appeared in all their granite glory.

A well-worn and gnawed-upon cow skull lay beside the trail, and burs of every kind were getting ready to hitch a ride on any passers-by.

Cockleburs

We passed a bark robe draped over a leaning tree and an unusual wound in a large Maple. The forest glowed green in the dappled sunlight.

Soon we emerged into another prairie area where the blue sky and puffy white clouds once again met the waving grasses. We came to a large granite boulder that had been split with feather and wedges and revealed a hodge-podge of different kinds and colors of granite. We guessed that the area had been explored for granite quarrying but rejected when the stone wasn’t true and uniform.

The prairie grasses, the wetlands that met the grasslands, and the plants and critters that lived there were a part of the all-encompassing title of ‘prairie.’ Each works together, in all their unique ways and means, to bring about the visual beauty of late Summer and the working structure of the prairie ecosystem. It would be mind-boggling to list the benefits the prairie system provides for our world, which include carbon sequestration. It’s not just a pretty place.

Prairies are often overlooked with an impatient ‘there’s nothing there,’ but it requires us to look more closely. It also provides a master class in the evolution of blooming plants throughout the three seasons of growth and decline. I especially appreciate the role of the Canada Wild Rye in the establishment of a new prairie. While nurse crops are used intentionally during prairie restoration, Mother Nature uses nurse plants and trees to protect and promote young seedlings in natural ecosystems. How do we as humans offer protection for our young ones? How do we offer that to the vulnerable people in our society? Close spatial association of the ‘nurse’ has a positive effect on the developing organism, or I would add, to the weak, sick, vulnerable, or wounded. A parent’s role is to be that nurse for our children as they grow and develop—to protect and shelter. But what happens when as adults we are in a vulnerable position—after sickness or surgery, new or old trauma, or loss from these increasingly horrific environmental disasters? We need people and organizations who are ‘nurse’ plants for us while we heal, grow in strength and agency, rebuild, and regain a sense of freedom. There is something about a prairie that pertains to us all.

Legacy of the Rocks

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If you were to ‘leave your mark’ on the world after you are gone, what would it be? To compress that even further, how would you do that if you had only the medium of a granite cliff and red ochre mineral pigment mixed with animal fat? And the only way to get to your granite cliff was by canoe? How would you condense your life experience into a message of importance to those who come after you?

The pictographs of Hegman Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness are such a legacy, though we don’t know the person who drew them or the reason why. Many have tried to interpret the meaning of the pictographs, but there is mystery as to the story and even to what exactly each part of it represents. It is estimated that the Native American rock artwork is between 500 and 1000 years old, but even that is a guess. But there is something compelling about it that draws thousands of people to Hegman Lake to paddle the clear, cool water to see it (or to ski or snowshoe to it in the Winter.)

A day permit is needed to enter the lake, and one has to portage canoes and packs of any kind 80 rods (about a quarter of a mile) from the parking lot to the lake. It’s a beautiful portage with many giant White Pines. Rocks and roots concentrate your gaze at your feet, however. We had three canoes and three experienced young people to portage them, as Chris and I carried packs, fishing poles, paddles, and water bottles. It wasn’t long before we were gliding across the beautiful South Hegman Lake!

Three of us were fishermen and two of us cameramen, along with our paddling duties, so the pace was slow and easy. Fish were caught and released, some micro, some larger, some recorded, some returned to their home with a “thanks, good to see you.”

The Pines and Spruces were stately and impressive in all stages of life. One had fallen into the lake and was bleached white by sun and water. Another had tipped over onto the hillside, and its shallow roots had lifted the shore rocks with them, creating a pinwheel of wood and stone. Water levels of the past had left stripes of algae on the shore boulders.

After a second short portage of only five rods in which we just carried canoes upright with everything in them, we entered North Hegman Lake. The terrain looked even more rugged with huge outcroppings of rock along the water.

Green mosses and white Caribou moss, which is really a lichen, covered the rocks under the evergreen trees. A combination of sun and shadows painted the rocky landscape.

It is a miracle how the trees grow out of the rocks. How adaptable they are! We expect they need feet of soil for roots to form—instead they have feet of rocks with crevices of soil!

I love the look of the cushy, ghost-like Caribou Moss. The arctic lichen is sometimes one of the only food sources for caribou and reindeer in the Winter. It gives them carbohydrates to keep warm, and each has adapted by having special microorganisms in their gut to digest the lichens.

At the north end of North Hegman, we saw the granite cliffs that were the huge canvas for the proportionately tiny pictographs.

Splits and shifts in the rock face created little ledges and crevices, and right above a ledge was the red-stained painting of a bull moose, a human figure with large hands, a mountain lion/wolf/dog figure, a line under the animals, canoe-looking marks with two people in two of them and one in the other, hash marks by the human (six or seven), and a cross or x above it all. What is the story or message of the pictographs? Carl Gawboy, an Anishinaabi artist, has studied the drawings for decades and believes them to be Ojibwe depictions of constellations of the Winter sky—Orion–Winter Maker, the Great Moose, Great Panther–as Spirit of the Water, and the North Star at the top. Perhaps this was a map of sorts using the stars as guides. Maybe it was an encouragement to persevere through the long months of Winter. Maybe it was just art for the sake of art or art for the sake of a story. We can certainly relate to that.

We can each make our own story about it—three canoes, two people in two and one in the other–just like our three canoes that day. Six strong decades of life with a faint line of the seventh yet to be. An ongoing wish to see a Moose. And my trek towards my own North Star.

The palisade of granite and the layers of different colored rock are works of art in their own right.

On our way back, we passed by a line of boulders that jutted from the water. I thought these giant rocks needed a name and deemed them ‘The Guardians of the Bay.’ (Perhaps that is where the Moose lives.)

On an island past the Guardians (or maybe it was an extended peninsula), we pulled over for a lunch break. The point of the island was all rock, like many campsites in the BWCA, and the view was typically beautiful and wild.

Aaron filtered some water to replenish our Nalgenes, and Chris spread out our lunch food on the rock table. In turn, we made our peanut butter bagel sandwiches and grabbed a handful of nutty and sweet gorp or a homemade granola bar. Simple and satisfactory.

Then the kids jumped into the lake to cool down and float and play in the wilderness water like otters.

The bees and I explored the island flora. Wintergreen crept along the ground on the northwest side, and blueberries grew among the rock crevices in their sparse bits of soil. I picked and ate a few blue ripe ones, but most of the crop was yet to be.

I admired the tall Grandfather White Pine who stood sentry on the rock outcropping. His roots grew on top of the rock, clutching and crawling and anchoring to anything that would hold him. His shedded needles created paths of brown that will eventually transform to soil. As the swimmers dried themselves in the sun, I soaked up the warmth of the rock and rays in a healing sauna of sorts.

Time is pretty much irrelevant in the wilderness, besides getting to where you need to be before dark, whether campsite or car. The sun and our bodies become timekeepers for travel, eating, and rest. It doesn’t take long to re-set to this natural way of being—if you allow it.

As we paddled back to the portage, a Loon swam along beside us. Its feeding of the day was finished, and he preened and cleaned his feathers as he floated along.

The water had calmed, and reflections of the kids in their canoes made a comforting picture. The water softly rippled as the point of the canoe cut through it and the paddle lifted and let go of the medium of our travel.

Part of our legacy in the flesh floated along beside us—do they know that they are our messages of importance? That we carefully and consciously gave them our time and attention with brushstrokes of love? That we allowed space for creativity and immersion in Nature? That we now are turning the story over to them? The story of Chris and I as individuals encompasses more than our many chapters of parenthood, and our footprints in time will reach more people than our children. But sometimes those parts are forgotten after decades of parenting. Carl Gawboy asked about the pictographs, “Who are the people that met there? And said, well, this is what we have to remember and this is what we have to teach.” What we have to remember and what we have to teach—it really is the foundation of a legacy. What is your message of importance? How have you grown out of the rocks, the hard times? How have you anchored yourself despite those hard times? Our messages are conveyed by words, art, and actions, and the reality of it is the message is just as much for ourselves as those who come after us. The receivers of the message see it with their own eyes and their own interpretations. It may be inspiring or discouraging. So it remains mysterious, no matter the message or the medium. And still we grow on, move on, and love on to what is yet to be.

Where the New Ones Grow

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We’ve all heard of ‘black and white thinking’ and have probably participated in it at some time in our lives. It is when we think or feel in absolutes—good or bad, right or wrong, valid or in-valid—with no in-between or gray area. This dichotomous thinking (or splitting) is often a self-protective trauma response when we feel unsafe. It often goes along with ‘me thinking’ when we feel or believe that others ‘should’ think the same way we do and therefore act the same way we do. (And of course ‘me thinking’ is always the ‘right’ way.)

Part of that way of thinking is to try to maintain some sort of order or control over any given situation, which is exactly what traumatized people are always trying to do when they get triggered or activated or to keep from getting that horrible feeling in their guts. We also like to ‘order’ our time with categories, routines, schedules, and things that make sense to us. It helps to ‘calm’ our bodies and minds. We do it with Nature, too. We want the natural world to fit into our categories—just think Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall—‘white or gray thinking,’ ‘light green thinking,’ ‘dark green and bright colors thinking,’ and ‘yellow and orange thinking.’ But at every turn, Nature is moving us beyond those categories, beyond our limited thinking.

Chris and I walked through a predominantly White Pine forest in the middle of the year at the height of summer. It was dark green with mature foliage and rich brown with tree trunks and only glimpses of bright color at a few chosen places. The trail was covered with pine needles and strewn with pine cones. Sunshine through the trees dappled the pine carpet.

I walked quite a ways on the noticeable carpet of pine needles and cones before I realized that everywhere we walked, tiny Pine seedlings had sprouted from the seeds that had been released from the opened cones. Right in the middle of summer there was new growth sprouting like it was early Spring! Hundreds of thousands of them so tiny and new that our boots could not miss them.

A meadow opened up to bright sunshine and grasses. Mullein, like dancers of the prairie, were standing five feet tall with a spike of yellow flowers that open before dawn and close by mid-afternoon. This wooly plant begins its biennial life with a low-growing whorl of fuzzy leaves in its first year. It needs cold temperatures to induce flowering the following year. It is capable of self-pollinating, and each plant can produce 100,000 to 240,000 tiny seeds that are viable for decades! Respect!

Another beautiful fuzzy plant is the Common Milkweed. The veined leaves are a work of art in and of themselves. And then the incredible ball of flower! Milkweeds are considered a ‘fugitive species’ in the southern Great Plains—their growth is dependent on disturbance because they can’t compete with other vegetation. Here in the northern plains, they are a more permanent member of the ecology.

Milkweeds contain cardiac glycosides that infuse the Monarch caterpillars who eat their leaves (and also the butterfly) with a toxin that deters birds and other predators. Genius defense. (Not to mention the Viceroy Butterfly who looks similar to the Monarch to take advantage of Mullerian mimicry.) But the butterfly we saw on the Milkweed was a not-colorful Wood Nymph whose unusual characteristic is over-wintering as a hibernating caterpillar instead of in the protection of a cocoon.

Who would ever think there is a mushroom called the Funeral Bell?

Two old Bigtooth Aspens grew side by side. Aspens are clonal plants that can grow from root suckers. They are categorized as a ‘pioneer species’ that is one of the first to grow after fire or clear-cutting. Five hundred different species of plants and animals utilize the Aspen tree in some way! What an impact one species of tree can have on the world!

Bulrushes grow near and in rivers and lakes. They are important for fish and bird habitat, including spawning areas for Northern Pike, nesting cover for Bass and Bluegills, and food for ducks, geese, and swans.

Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) is named after the Greek god of medicine (Asklepios) and is a food source for the Monarch. They have specialized, scented white roots that like heavy, wet soil.

The forest had many trees as large as these twin White Pines, stately, iconic Minnesota trees. They give a person a feeling of grandeur and history—all the things these trees have seen in their long lives! Wow!

And right there on the forest floor, from the nourishment of old trees, needles, and leaves, the new ones grow.

Nature is neither bad nor good—it defies dichotomous thinking and human categorization. It has gray areas galore. It has diversity and interdependence that connects species and truly makes the world go round. How many of the amazing ‘facts’ did you know about these few plants? Can you believe that individual people have similar ‘amazing facts’ that make up their lives? Just as Nature is a moving circle of Life that creates, develops, grows, matures, and dies, we are the same. We cannot be placed in ‘them or us’ boxes. I have thought and reacted with black and white thinking in a desire for control of who or what was triggering the horrible feeling in my gut. I did it for many, many years, but trying to control other people or things is not the way to erase those feelings. The work is ours, and it is on ourselves. Nature can be our guide to move us beyond our limited thinking, to help us show respect for the unique individuals in our midst, to see beauty and interdependence with ‘colorful thinking,’ and most importantly, to help us heal the wounds that have hurt us all.

Storytellers and Swimmers

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I cannot begin to count the number of days in my life that have slid by in a blur. Some were in the self-centered days of early childhood when as children, we concentrate on getting our needs met and learning about the world. Others were in the extreme busyness of going to graduate school while juggling the activities and needs of three kids. Still others were once again in self-centered mode when pain could not be relieved, and my world shrunk down to cocoon-size in an attempt to manage the overwhelm. I have no negative judgement of those times—we do what we have to do in any given situation. But because of plenty of those blurry, constricted times, I am very aware of the times that are sharply outlined, slowly delicious, and wonderfully expansive for my mind-body-spirit freedom.

A good way to discover that mind-body-spirit freedom is to find some water, trees, and wild sky to park yourself in for a few days. The ‘agenda’ becomes play in the water, hike to the hill-top, and watch the moon rise over the trees. The process originates from our senses—noticing what we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. And all of the feel-good sensing and activities are grounded in our bodies, memories, and soul by sharing them with people we love who love us. It’s a win-win-win.

One of the first sounds I heard was a loud, chirping/cheeping chatter. It sounded like a much louder version of the baby chicks we used to house on our back porch until they were big enough to move to the chicken coop. A pair of Osprey sat in a haphazard nest in the dead top of a Pine tree and told their story to all who could hear them.

The water the Osprey overlooked and fished from was clear and cold. Red-stemmed Water Lilies floated on the surface like silver coins, along with the silver star reflections made by the afternoon sun.

Yellow Pond Lilies and Northern Blueflag Irises decorated the water and shore with their Summer colors.

A Painted Turtle had crawled up on shore and dug a hole with its sharply-clawed hind feet in order to lay eggs. Our presence interrupted those plans.

One of the common foods for Painted Turtles is Dragonfly larvae. They live in the water through numerous molts, then crawl out of the water, learn to breathe air, shed their skin, and emerge as an adult, winged Dragonfly. A larva shell is stuck to the bark of this fallen log. (right in the middle of the picture) A new Dragonfly flies away!

Freedom is often depicted with the image of a butterfly that has completed its metamorphosis from egg to caterpillar to larva in a cocoon or chrysalis to adult butterfly. Freedom to develop, nourish one’s self, grow, incubate, isolate, change, and fly.

Another resident bird of the lake can sing a person to sleep in the evening as the western sky still holds the day’s light. The Common Loons also woke me in the early morning with a flurry of calls and a swimming/flying routine I called ‘motorboating.’ I wasn’t sure if they were doing their morning exercise or if this activity was for another purpose; I did notice their calls seemed more vigorous than usual.

Then I saw another lone Loon in a different part of the lake, so perhaps they were defending their territory.

Rocks are the hold-in-your-hand or hold-up-your-feet entities that make a person know what gravity is, what sun-induced warmth is, and what eons of history are in this place. Lichens and moss are the writing that tells the story.

Like a foraging Black Bear or a hungry Gray Jay, I browsed through the brush of Wild Blueberries growing in the scant soil over the large rocks. They were just beginning to ripen, so pickings were precious and few. Not so with the Juneberries on the shrubby, thin-branched trees—they were ripe and abundant and oh-so-delicious!

The smell of campfire smoke is like a signal to relax, prepare some nourishment, eat slowly and laugh often. Usually only one or two people of the group become the fire-tend-er; others take care of food, clean-up, and equipment—there are shared responsibilities even when time is slow and relaxation is the goal. As evening smoke drifted up into the calm sky, a beaver swam in circles in the lake—again, it seemed like he was doing it for fun, for the pure joy of movement. At one point we startled him, and he slapped his tail on the water with a loud ‘crack’ and dove out of sight. But soon he was back to swimming his laps. We saw him swim to the shore where a bright green branch of leaves grew or lay in the shallow water, and he nibbled and nibbled his post-workout snack until it was almost gone.

Late evening and watching the almost full moon rise above the trees and reflect on the water—I wonder if these moments could get much better. It’s a ‘savor-moment’—it makes me feel like everything is going to be okay in a time when so many things make it feel otherwise.

Then morning comes after a Loon-call-filled night. Mist from a warm day, cool night floats above the water. Reflections on the calm, still water give us a slightly different view of reality, expanding our minds.

We all go through constricted times in our lives when facts and feelings are blurry. Pain, whether physical or emotional, is a constrictor. We don’t usually have the capacity to do much beyond dealing with the very real but usually distorting pain. Looking back to those times in my life, I realize there were negative consequences to my being in the cocooning pain, but there were also gifts to be had and lessons to be learned. Extreme busyness also tends to blur the perceptions and memories of a given time. Both pain and busyness are integral parts of Life. We won’t escape them, but we can cultivate more feelings of freedom. Being in the arms of Mother Nature, listening to the Loons and Osprey, seeing the full moon rise over the trees, smelling the campfire, tasting the Juneberries, and touching the warm rocks all expand my mind, body, and spirit. I feel like I could fly. I want more of that.

The Unseen River

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In the early seventies—yes, back in the nineteen hundreds—I was one of millions of kids who watched the one television set in the house with my siblings. We watched an array of programs—The Brady Bunch, Saturday morning cartoons, American Bandstand, Dark Shadows, the Merv Griffin Show, To Tell the Truth, Hee Haw, Laugh-In, and so many more. One of the shows we watched—The Flip Wilson Show—popularized an idiom “what you see is what you get” when Flip impersonated his drag persona ‘Geraldine.’ And no one, not my Republican parents, not the ‘media,’ not half the members of Congress, or concerned citizens thought this show was ruining, grooming, exploiting, or influencing children. It was a comedy show with a humorous man dressing up like a sassy character, and it was funny! Looking back at any of those programs could indeed bring on some cringe moments in this day and age, but we survived our tv-watching childhood and became who we were meant to be.

“What you see is what you get” is a statement often used by a person who is unapologetic of who they are or how they are behaving, especially if another asks them to do or be something different. It implies there is no hidden or unknown features, traits, or characteristics beyond what is seen or immediately apparent, and it also implies that the person has no interest in changing. This statement can run the gamut from a person who is humbly grounded in who they are in the world to a rude reply of ‘hey, I do what I do, and I don’t care what you or anybody else thinks.’ I’m not so interested in who says it or for what reason, but in the premise that what we see is the whole story.

When we went north to Bemidji, we were on a bee-line to see the bog, and I was thrilled to see the blooming bog plants. After our bog walk, we picnicked beside Lake Bemidji, a medium sized (7,000 acres) lake with clear water, sandy beaches, and abundant fish species. We hiked along the beach and along the northern shore for a ways, noticing boats and float planes traversing the waters.

Other floaters seemed to ignore the few people fishing and swimming. A red-headed Common Merganser swam close to the beach. A large Snapping Turtle floated to the surface near the dock, then lazily swam under the dock as fishermen threw their lines close by. A school of Yellow Perch doubled their numbers with dark shadows of themselves. A Blue-Winged Teal preened on a rock by the fishing dock, then swam close to the hiking path.

Along the rocky shore where Bass Creek flows into Lake Bemidji, Harlequin Blueflag Irises displayed their showy purple flowers, and the ball-shaped buds of Yellow Pond Lilies floated above their lily pad leaves.

June Wild Roses proliferated along the wetlands, their sweet smell and pink faces bringing joy to those who noticed them.

Bass Creek cuts a path from Big Bass Lake to Lake Bemidji, part of the 396,000 acres of land that drains into Lake Bemidji. The rushes, reeds, and cattails create a scenic wetland and provide food and shelter to the animals who live there.

There is much to see at Lake Bemidji State Park, as with so much of northern Minnesota. It hones your observation skills and makes one appreciate the incredible diversity that is contained in a rather homogeneous area. What you see encompasses a large part of the story, but it is not the whole story. We tend to think of water flowing into a lake as becoming the lake—Bass Creek becomes Lake Bemidji. But there is something we don’t see. ‘Bemidji’ means ‘lake with crossing waters’ from the Ojibwa word ‘Bemidjigamaag.’ The Mississippi River, whose source is less than fifty miles away at Lake Itasca, flows into Lake Bemidji from the south and west, crosses the Lake and exits on the east side. A river runs through the lake. This large and impressive River flows through a number of northern lakes before it begins its southward descent to Louisiana.

The things we don’t see are powerful parts of the story of a River and a Lake, just as they are with the stories of our Lives. My premise is the idiom of ‘what you see is what you get’ is how a person wants to be seen, not all that is there. It’s more likely a way to hide a vulnerability or a painful part of oneself. We have amazing, creative, resilient ways to armor ourselves against pain and loss, but the spirit of who we are runs through us whether seen or unseen. I like that we and all of Nature are an amazing combination of both. I think the challenge is to integrate all those parts of ourselves—the swagger, the shadows, the funny parts, the vulnerable parts, the knowledge, the fears, and the weaknesses—into an authentic, happy, beautiful Self while shedding those behaviors that separate us from ourselves and others. What is the unseen river that runs through you?

On a Quest for the Elusive Pitcher Plant

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Two years ago for my birthday we hiked at Mille Lacs Kathio State Park where I discovered the intriguing deep red flower of the Purple Pitcher Plant. But it was in the middle of a bog, unreachable, unattainable, elusive. So I was never able to see the actual plant—the ‘pitcher’ part, the insect-eating, carnivorous, cartoonishly-scary part of the plant. So a few days after my birthday, when I knew the Pitcher Plants would be blooming, we got up early in the morning and headed north to Lake Bemidji State Park. The boggy land between and among Lakes Bemidji, Big Bass, Timber, and Big Bog has been protected as a park since 1923. The bogs are a result of water-filled depressions formed by the receding glaciers that over the years has filled with partially decayed plant material or peat. Bogs contain decayed sphagnum peat moss which can hold water like a sponge and is used to enrich garden soil. The bog environment is cold, acidic, and low in oxygen, a rather challenging ecosystem for plants to thrive. So they have adapted by becoming efficient in the use of light, moisture, and nutrients. Many have evergreen leaves to extend the growing season, some have thick, fleshy leaves to store moisture, and many have showy flowers to attract pollinating insects, then produce huge numbers of seeds. We found our way to Bog Walk Trail, prepared for mosquito attacks, and walked through the upland woods to the bog boardwalk.

Bunchberry Dogwoods are a low-growing groundcover, a northern Dogwood with the iconic showy white flowers. A cluster of bright red berries forms after flowering.

Soon I spotted the elusive Purple Pitcher Plant flower among the Horsetails, its heavy head bent over, its stem buried in the abundant vegetation of the bog! I strained to see the base of the flower, the ‘pitcher,’ but could not see it.

My attention was drawn to a single purple flower on a smooth stem, a Dragon’s Mouth Orchid! This beautiful flower will produce up to a million seeds! That is mind bog-gling!

I did not have to walk far before I saw more Pitcher Plant flowers on their sturdy, curving stems, and this time I was just able to find the green-mouthed ‘pitcher’ at their base.

If one was walking the boardwalk even at a stroll, there are many plants and flowers that would be missed. This is a place that compels a person to look closely, to stop and peer into the green wonderland of this soft world. Twinflowers rise from a single stem, then a pair of pink, bell-shaped flowers opens above the creeping evergreen leaves. These tiny flowers (1/3″ to 1/2″) are fragrant for their diminutive size (almond scented), are part of the Honeysuckle family, and have the lovely Latin name of Linnaea borealis!

At the Mille Lacs Kathio bog, I was enthralled with the clumps of Tussock Cottongrass. At Lake Bemidji bog, a different species—Slender Cottongrass—grows. It is smaller, droopier, but no less stunning!

Large-leaved Showy Lady’s Slippers (Minnesota’s State Flower) were in the bud stage, just about to bloom. Another of the Orchid family species, the Stemless Lady’s Slipper or Moccasin Flower, was in full pink bloom.

Starflower, a type of Primrose, and Labrador Tea, a type of Heath, were abundant in the bog. Most of the Labrador Teas were past bloom, but we found some in shadier spots that were open and seemingly desirable to some insects. (Speaking of insects, we were amazingly not bothered by mosquitoes!)

I saw more and more of the nodding Purple Pitcher Plant flowers as we walked the boardwalk trail. Even when they were close to the trail and in relatively open vegetation, the Pitcher Plants were well-camouflaged. The ‘pitcher’ is a very specialized leaf in the shape of a cylinder. It is an engineering marvel with a ‘wing’ structure down the front to strengthen it when it is full of rainwater. The lip is densely covered with stiff downward-angled hairs that help glide the insects into the enzyme-rich rainwater where it drowns and is ‘digested’ so the nutrients can be used by the plant. The red-purple veining and nectar attract the insects to their demise.

We saw more bright Moccasin Flowers, a few other Dragon’s Mouth Orchids, and some Wild Lily of the Valley. The forest part of the bog was occupied by Tamarack (Larch) and Black Spruce trees who like wet feet and acidic conditions.

The Pitcher Plant flowers are in and of themselves a work of art. Their thick, waxy petals can be in all states of opening—from tight buds to open, expanded umbrellas. After the petals fall the seed capsule remains on the long stem into Fall.

The mossy floor of the bog is suspended above water and is the substrate from which the plants grow. The trees grow horizontal roots to help them stand in the wet conditions. Marsh Marigolds, with their veined round leaves, were at the end of their blooming season; we saw a few of the rich golden flowers.

As we got closer to Big Bog Lake, we began to see some cattails growing with the bog plants. Wild Calla Lilies, with their beautiful heart-shaped leaves, grew in the outlet of the lake.

Wild Blueberries were bountiful in the bog and were setting fruit.

Smaller even than the Twinflowers are the Bog Cranberry flowers (1/4″) with pinkish-white petals that curl back away from the stamens and pistil. They have viney evergreen leaves and produce a small, red fruit. Now look even more closely—at the bottom center of the photo below the small Cranberry flowers is another carnivorous plant of the bog—Round-leaved Sundew. The round, reddish tinged leaves have sticky hairs that trap and enfold insects that are digested for nutrients for the tiny plant.

The bog is a fascinating ecosystem with beautiful and interesting plants. The elusive Purple Pitcher Plants ended up being plentiful in the Bemidji bog! Their pitcher leaves turn more colorful with the sun and the progression of the season. They are a perfect example of evolutionary adaptability that all the plants of the bog display.

From my first encounter with the alluring Purple Pitcher Plant flower, I became kind of obsessed with them. I had heard of carnivorous plants, but did not realize they were right here in the wilds of Minnesota! And while they were elusive in the bogs I had visited, I was hardly a bog aficionada (well, I do have the enthusiasm and appreciation.) I had the desire to see more and learn more (a quest) and was happy to get up early to go to a place we had never been before. There are many desires in our lives that seem unreachable, unattainable, or elusive. How can we find these hard-to-catch yearnings? Being in the right place at the right time is more than just a cliché—some of our longings absolutely need to be timed correctly and situated in the right place—or the pursuit will be unreachable. It also helps to have the right people who are willing and able to walk beside us, be patient and encouraging, and who possess a kind heart and sense of humor. I’m grateful my bog boardwalking partner is all of that. Most every one of us have a bountiful life teeming with beauty, diversity, and goodness. Stop for a moment or two and peer into the wonderland that is your life on this amazing, great green Earth.

Reckoning Our Storytelling

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We are all fantastical storytellers. You may remember your own yarns as a child, or more likely, those of children, as fanciful, creative chronicles spilled from their imaginations and mouths. And often, they were a key character in the saga. At some point in development, there is a reckoning between fantasy and reality, often involving those joyous childhood participants in legend—Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny. Disillusionment and disappointment. Even anger at the deliverer of such bad news. It is all a part of growing up, a step towards maturity.

Our creative, imaginative brains, in an attempt to make sense of any given situation, continue to make up stories throughout our childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The stories tend to live and twirl inside our own minds. They gather strength and even ‘evidence’ as the story is imagined again and again and again. “I can’t do math.” “Nobody likes me.” “I’m a freak.” “I’m a bad student.” “She’s a bad teacher.” “People are taking advantage of me.” “Someone is out to get me.” What starts out as an inner insecurity often morphs into an outward blaming of others.

Last Sunday, Chris and I traveled to the Minnesota River Valley at Fort Ridgely State Park. The fort was built in 1853 near the Dakota reservations of Upper and Lower Sioux Agencies on what had been Dakota land for thousands and thousands of years. It was used as an outpost, Civil War training facility, and buffer between the Dakotas and the surge of settler–colonists coming into the area. In the middle of the fort stands a granite monument to honor the soldiers and others who fought and were killed in the bloody Dakota War of 1862. On large brass plates on four sides of the monument, a story of the battle is articulated by some person thirty years after the war. Reading the narrative in this day and age shows a stark bias against the Indians with how the storyteller articulated false motives of young Indians who ‘started’ the war and who were ‘out to kill’ the white settlers and soldiers. The modern signage around the excavated ruins of the fort told a different story. The Indians on the reservations were being starved when food promised them from government treaties was not being delivered. The man in charge told them “to eat grass if they are hungry.” Forced from their homeland onto reservations, then starved by the government is a different reality than the story told on the monument.

The Minnesota River valley was cut out from glacial till by erosion over thousands of years. The ridge above the River has been returned to prairie.

Orange Sulphur butterfly on Rough Blazing Star
Goldenrod gall

After our fort tour (the museum run by the Minnesota Historical Society was closed), we began our hike behind the CCC-built picnic area. We curved down a hill to the Fairway Trail in a wide strip of prairie that started on top of the ridge and went all the way down to Fort Ridgely Creek. (In 1927, a golf course was built on the park grounds and has since been returned to prairie.) The Ash trees were tipped yellow, Goldenrod and Sunflowers were in their full glory, and crickets chirped an Autumn song.

Canada Rye grass

At the top of this hill is a chalet used as a warming house for Winter sledding and snow sports.

This area of Minnesota has been in drought conditions, and Fort Ridgely Creek and the Minnesota River were very low. We did see minnows swimming in the shallow water of the creek.

A couple miles north of the main park was a horse camp area in the valley of Fort Ridgely Creek. Huge walls of rock and clay on the east side of the creek created a quiet, protected area.

We passed many horseback riders as we hiked, and one proclaimed that it was much easier the way they were doing it than the way we were—but I didn’t know how right he was until we climbed the trail out of the creek bottom to the ridge.

Butterfly Weed going to seed
Tall Boneset and Goldenrod

The upper prairie was dominated by Indian Grass, its deep rusty-brown seedheads swayed in the wind and paid homage to the ancestors who had lived and died here.

Sunflowers were brilliant, their golden pollen attracting Goldenrod Soldier Beetles, a beneficial insect that doesn’t harm the plants.

Goldenrod Soldier Beetles mating

A Cranberrybush Viburnum gave a different vibe from the fall-ish yellow and browns of the prairie.

Sideoats Grama Grass and Common Milkweeds with their full pods of seeds, lined the trail in the Indian Grass prairie.

Fort Ridgely closed in 1872, and soon after, settlers unlawfully pillaged the buildings for stone and wood. In 1896, the land was set aside for the US–Dakota War Memorial, and in 1911, with an additional 50 acres, it was designated a state park, the fourth oldest in Minnesota. Now it has 537 acres of history and stories. It is a stark example of how the story changes with time and with who writes it. As I read the story of the US–Dakota War etched into the brass plates on the granite obelisk, I wondered what the Dakota version of the story would be. Our complicated, damning history.

Our stories are often paradoxical—many different versions of the same situation and all of them bearing some, but not all, of the truth. And as I mentioned before, we all have a tendency towards the fantastical, when a story does not correspond with the facts of reality. It really is a human conundrum. We tell ourselves illusory stories in part to have some sort of control over the situation, to put ourselves at the helm when things feel out of control or overwhelming. Perhaps it is ‘practice’ for real life. But too often, we only want our version of the story to be told, fantastical or not. We want our version of other people’s stories to be the truth. I have had many stories live and twirl in my mind in unrealistic fashion, so I know of what I speak. We become entwined with our own story, and the unwinding of it only promises disillusionment, disappointment, grief, and anger. No wonder we are so reluctant to the reckoning. Growing up is not easy, and growing into maturity is even more difficult. How can we be mature and generous with our storytelling? How can we navigate a fair way? How can we pay homage to our own struggles and to the struggles of others? It might take the very thing we started with as children—an open and creative imagination. Can we imagine the homeless person’s story as part of our narrative? Can we include a poor, young mother’s abortion story as part of our own mothering story? Can we envision what a displaced, starving person would do to try to regain health and agency in a repressive culture? We can have our own values and at the same time listen deeply to and walk with a person who is in a situation unlike any we have ever imagined for ourselves. It grows us as a person into a more seasoned version of ourselves. Welcome to the hard-earned, fruit-bearing, browned and aging Autumnal season of Life.