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...]
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.
Protected
One of my most instinctual and intentional qualities of being a parent, as I’m sure is true for most parents, was to protect my children. To protect is to preserve from harm, safeguard, shield; to keep secure from injury, damage, exposure, and destruction. It was a daunting task, and one that seems to be even more so in this day and age. The issue of how we protect our own children, those we know and love, and the children in our communities at large is complicated and emotionally-charged. Add to that who should do the protecting and from what we are protecting them, and the issue gets more muddied, more challenging, and more divisive. It seems like a simple matter—keep kids safe—but it is not.
When reading about Myre–Big Island State Park near Albert Lea, Minnesota, I was struck with them mentioning how the Big Island was protected from fires that had previously swept through the area. Big Island is 120 acres of hardwood forest that sits in the middle of Albert Lea Lake. A narrow causeway connects it to the ‘mainland.’ It is protected by water on all sides. We hiked around the island on a warm, muggy day. Maple trees are the predominant hardwood on the island and offered deep shade with their large palmate leaves. The water was hard to see from the trail in most areas, since the young Maples crowded the shore for sunlight.
It was a beautiful island forest that had been home for humans for over 9,000 years. Not only was it protected from fires, but it provided a secure place for its inhabitants with food, water, shelter, and a moat of safety.
The large Maple and Basswood trees were accompanied by Ash, Red Oak, and Elm trees. Ironwood was the main understory tree. There were many interesting trees in all stages of development, from seedling to decaying. I noticed an Artist’s Conk, a perennial fungus that often grows from a wound on a living tree. The white underside of this bracket fungus is used by artists to etch a drawing into, leaving a sepia-colored work of art! (Google it!)
Woodpeckers, wind, lightening, old age, sunscald, and insects have all made their marks on the trees of Big Island.
The undergrowth was dominated by Gooseberry bushes that had been ‘pruned’ by the grazing deer, despite the fact they have protective spines or thorns on them. The deer eat the tender new growth that is more palatable. I was also amazed at how many Jack-in-the-Pulpit plants were growing under the Gooseberries—perhaps the thorny Gooseberries shield them from damage or offer a symbiotic relationship of some sort.
As we walked, the sky grew cloudier and darker, and the air was so thick with moisture that my camera had a hard time focusing. We cut our hike a little short because of the weather, and in switching paths, we saw five deer, including two spotted fawns. The vigilant does stamped their feet and watched us carefully as they protected their fawns.
Caretaking mothers of all species have an innate drive to protect their young ones—one only needs to spend time with animal parents to witness their fierceness. But their and our determination to protect our children, despite our best effort, sometimes fails. Our children get hurt, exploited, harmed, or damaged by accidents, by bullies, by ignorant cultural practices, or by dark forces that impel people to act in anti-social ways. We cannot become immune to the damage that befalls our children, and we should take every step possible to safeguard their lives. Every step possible.
A Walk in the Woods
Let’s take our hearts for a walk in the woods and listen to the magic whispers of old trees. –author unknown
This is one of the most wonderful, uplifting times of the year to go walking in the woods. Each tree seems to be more beautifully colored than the one before, and some spectacular specimens produce an absolute feeling of awe as you stop and stare up at their fall finery.
It is a time for purging, getting rid of the old. It is a ritual as old as Mother Nature herself—it has purpose and timing, procedure and method. No human interaction necessary…
…until the discards pile up in a thick, crunchy carpet on your yard! But in the forest, the leaves are doing precisely what is needed—they are protecting the roots and crowns of all the plants that hibernate for the winter. In the northern climes, the blanket of leaves waits for a blanket of snow that adds another layer of protection from the cold temperatures.
So Autumn is about purging and decay—just like the trees that die, are used by insects, woodpeckers, and animals of all sizes, and return to the earth. Like the leaves, the wood from the trees is broken down to return nutrients and humus and bacteria to the soil. The wonderful sustaining circle of life.
Walking in the woods at this time of year is a noisy affair—no sneaking up on animals or persons when each step swishes and crunches and crackles. It’s the music of Autumn that somehow infuses a feeling of childlike joy to the wanderer.
Wild and magical mushrooms that push their way up through the soil and leaf litter or grow from the side of a tree always amaze me. They are tough, yet delicate, striking or camouflaged, and have an artful flair.
Autumn is about hiding—the plants and later some animals will hide away under the old, purged leaves, in the old, decaying tree stumps, under the plant material that sinks to the bottom of the lakes and streams.
Two Sandhill Cranes are hiding from us, bathing in the shallow water, and eating their fill of gleanings from corn and soybean fields before they migrate south.
Autumn is a time of reflection. What do I need to purge from my life? What do I want to let go of? What do I need to protect myself? What brings me childlike joy?
What brings artful flair to my life? What inspires me?
And the leaves fall down right before my eyes…
Happy 1st Day of Fall
Happy 1st day of Fall to all of you! It is a beautiful autumn day–clear blue sky, bright sunshine, cool temperature, and a tapestry of orange, red, yellow and green leaves. It is the season for picking apples, making apple butter, drinking apple cider, choosing pumpkins, carving jack-o-lanterns, raking leaves, and running through a corn maze. It is harvest time for the farmers, closing time for the cabins and camps that have housed a summer of delightful fun, and hunting time for those who carry a bow or gun for sport or to put food on the table.
Over the weekend, our yard was a wildlife paradise of sorts, as the deer grazed through the delectable offerings one evening and the posse of almost fully grown turkeys swept through the yard at midday with flapping wings and watchful eyes.
The sumac is in all its glory–the understory to yellow-leaved ash and poplars.
We met up with Aaron at St. John’s Arboretum yesterday for a spectacular walk through the woods. The maple leaves glowed against the dark trunks and branches on trees so lofty it took my breath away.
Fallen leaves lined the path through the woods and decorated the ferns and wood nettles with bright spots of color.
Fall is the between season. Most of us do not want to see the end of summer as we wonder how it could have slipped away so quickly. And we regret that things we wanted to do were left undone. Some of us are beginning the dread of winter–few in Minnesota complain that winter isn’t long enough! But in between those wishes to go back to the warmth and the not wanting to go forward to the bitter cold is this cool spot in the timeline. We may end the season of Fall in a blanket of snow, but the beginning is spectacular, and we have many weeks before us of warm days, cool nights, great color, and autumn treasures. Enjoy!
