Birch Lakes State Forest Archives

The Story of Life in One Leaf

August 27, 2023 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

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.

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.

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.

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.

Without a Map or an App

April 12, 2020 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

In this stay-at-home/ social distancing/ unprecedented time of the Covid-19 pandemic, we find ourselves without a map or an app. How do we do this? Which way is the best way to go? Where do we end up if we follow this path? The unknown is unnerving. Even as the hope of Spring is pulling us out of the dark, bleak Winter, there is still bleakness all around—death, sickness, chaos, partisanship, job loss, fear, hunger, and more. We haven’t done this before! What are we supposed to do?!

Twelve days ago Chris and I drove west to Birch Lakes State Forest. We had been there once before, a number of years ago. The gate was closed at the entrance, as the unplowed, sandy road was still snowy in places and soggy in the rest. We parked by the sign, the only ones—the only human ones, that is—to inhabit the forest for the afternoon. Before we were even out of the car, we saw an eagle circling above our heads. They are so impressive and free—watching them fly takes me out of my earthly worries into the clear blue strata above.

The pond across the road was still ice-covered, the snowmobile tracks still visible, the trees in the forest still unadorned. As much as we want our beautiful, full-blown Spring, this is our Spring reality.

Before we left the car side, we heard a high-spirited screeching in the sky. Two hawks were singing and swooping in a joyful sky dance! The mated pair flew apart, then close together (one carrying a stick in its beak) with grace and energy for the Spring ritual of mating, nesting, and raising a family.

It was only when we saw a path and entered the forest that I remembered we didn’t have a map of the trails. No worries—even though we hadn’t hiked in this area before, I knew Birch Lake was at the end of the road, and we would find our way.

With the exception of a few Fir and Spruce trees, the landscape was brown and gray—until we walked a little farther and looked a little closer. I saw a bright red dollop in the brown leaves—one of the earliest, showiest fungi—the Scarlet Elf Cup.

Vibrant green Sedge grass looked unscathed by five months of being buried under snow.

Fungi was the star of the show in the brown woods, in color, texture, and form with expressive names like Turkey Tail, Oyster, and Artist’s Conk.

Lush green moss covered areas of trees, logs, and ground in impressive mini-scapes.

From the hardwood, deciduous forest we entered a quiet, moss-covered Spruce forest. The sun streaked through in an other-worldly way.

A number of times the trail diverged in the woods—which way to go? Where will it lead? I would choose one. The hills were steep in places, and the north faces still had quite a bit of snow. One lower area had a population of Leatherwood trees—short, almost shrub-like trees with pliable, yet strong branches. They bloom in early Spring with tiny yellow flowers before getting any leaves, but we were still a little too early to see them.

We found evidence of the non-human occupants of the forest—a clump of deer hair in a patch of snow mold and a deer rub where the bucks rub their antlers against a young tree.

The landscape looked bleak after the snow melt, but small signs of the hope of Spring could be found—the moss was flowering!

The ice was melting!

The water was flowing!

The geese were flying!

With no map, we navigated our way through the forest and ended up at Birch Lake. We walked back to the car in the soggy sand road marked occasionally by fresh deer tracks.

When we left the State Forest, we circled around Birch Lake by car, and we saw a huge, dark eagle’s nest in the distant trees. Our hike had begun and ended with an eagle—one high in the sky with his bird’s eye view and eagle eyes looking for food and the other sitting high in a tree with her nest of eggs or young ones.

The unknown doesn’t need to be unnerving—it can be an adventure. How do we do this? One day at a time with patience, faith, and love. Which way is the best way to go? Follow the signs (six feet apart) and maintain that inside sense of direction. Where do we end up if we follow this path? Expertise, knowledge, science, and history of past hard times will guide our path in this new time with the novel virus. What does a bird’s eye view show us about how we were living in the past, how we are living now, and how we want to choose to live in the future? This is our Spring reality—not how we’d like it to be, certainly not beautiful, definitely bleak in many ways, but there are small signs of hope everywhere when we look closely. No worries, dear people of our Earth, the process and the path will unfold. We will find our way.

Journey into Nature and Parenthood

May 12, 2016 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order. –John Burroughs

There is a connection between the generations, a sinew of code that we receive from our parents and ancestors and pass on to our offspring. Our chromosomes determine eye color, hair and skin color, and many other physical and personality characteristics–our Nature. When we celebrate Mother’s and Father’s Days, however, it is mainly about our Nurture–how we were raised and nurtured and how we raised and nurtured our children. The nine months of carrying and growing a child, the months and years of nursing them, caring for their every need, teaching them, guiding them, providing for them, cherishing them, and allowing them to become the persons they were meant to be. A difficult, joyous, incredible, honorable journey.

Our journey into nature this past weekend was to Birch Lakes State Forest, one of the smallest state forests in Minnesota, situated between two lakes on hilly, forested land created by glacial depositions. It is in the transition zone between the southwest prairie and northeast forested regions. It is mainly a deciduous forest with aspens, maples, basswoods, and oaks.

Spring wildflowers were blooming on the trail by the lake: Large-flowered Bellwort and Wood Anemone.

We hiked the trail with no map, not knowing where we were going, around shallow ponds filled with cattails and surrounded by white-barked birches.

Wild Calla Lilies or Waterdragons bloomed in one of the shallow ponds.

Jack-in-the-Pulpits and Ferns were abundant along the trail.

One of the most interesting plants in the forest was a small shrub. It was shaped like a petite tree with a singular trunk and symmetrical branches. The bark was smooth and brownish-gray, and the branches were pliable and bent without breaking.

Neither of us knew what kind of shrub it was, and on closer inspection, we saw that it had already bloomed and was producing fruit.

After a fairly long search when we returned home, I found the shrub on the Minnesota DNR field guide to native plants. ‘Dirca palustris’ or Leatherwood grows in part to full shade and likes a boggy habitat. It blooms in March or April, before its leaves emerge, with a bell-shaped pale yellow flower. The fruit will be red by fall, and the leaves have a yellow fall color. I remembered that I had taken a picture of a blooming shrub during our early spring hike at St. John’s Arboretum. It was the blooming Leatherwood! The Native Americans used the tough, leathery twigs and bark for bow strings, baskets, fishing line, and rope.

The only critters we saw were a loon on Birch Lake when we arrived and a camouflaged tree frog on the leafy trail towards the end of our hike.

Going to a place we had never been before and walking through Nature’s incredible gifts soothed my soul and got my senses in order. Connection with Nature–in all its glories–is something we nurtured and passed on to our children. The journey of parenthood takes a sharp turn when children are adults and living in places far from their parents, but the road never ends. Losing a parent of my own in these last months brings that reality home. Remember to whom we belong. That sinew of code–tough, flexible, unbreakable–that we receive from our parents, grandparents, and ancestors and the years of nurturing from resilient, flawed parents make us who we are. Follow the trail of life. We may not know where we’re going all the time, but we can find beauty and interesting things along the way. Find our own way. We choose our paths, sometimes turn around when we find we’re on the wrong trail, and at other times blaze our own trail with intuition and spirit. May Goodness and Mercy follow us all the days of our precious lives.

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