rain Archives - NorthStarNature

Waiting for What We Want

May 1, 2022 by Denise Brake 3 Comments

I remember the bubbling, hard-to-contain excitement I felt in grade school as the large round clock face inched its way towards the end of the school day. It wasn’t with a sense of relief that I moved towards that bell ringing, because I loved school and learning, but I looked forward to the other things in my life that were also meaningful—horses in the pasture by our driveway, cats and dogs at our home, and acres of woods behind our house where we built forts and made trails. My first way of learning. It’s hard to wait when something is pulling you forward.

I would not be stepping on anyone’s toes in stating that Minnesotans are anxiously waiting for Spring. She has shown up on the calendar, in the snow melt, and maybe in some moderating temperatures, but we have seen snow, freezing high temps, and barren ground. At least with waiting for Spring, kind of like watching the clock at school, we know with certainty that it will come.

On the 21st, one month after the official start of Spring, I walked at Saint John’s Arboretum in the hopes of seeing Spring come bursting forth. I found a scroll of Birch bark—did this hold the secret script of Spring’s timeline?

I found one patch of snow still on a shady stretch of trail. I found the reassuring green of moss covering a sloping bank and the first ‘flowers’ of the season pushing up stalks of spores from the soft bed of moss.

I found some green Fern fronds and a few trails of Wild Strawberries that had maintained their ‘greenness’ under the blanket of Winter snow.

I found a hardy Thistle rosette that had stubbornly thrived under the snow.

And on the prairie, I searched high and low for the early-blooming Pasque flower to no avail, but I did find the green leaves of Prairie Smoke under the old grass litter—a small signal of Spring hope.

But that was it—beyond the tough little Pine seedlings that survive the snow burial of Winter which actually protects them from extreme cold and nibbling rabbits and deer. Gotta love them!

So I waited another week—one 60 degree day and some rain tricked us all into thinking this was it, but the cold returned, the sun hid behind pouty clouds, and we all waited again. Then on Thursday, I noticed a change! Leaf buds were showing and swelling and even opening! Lilacs, Gooseberries, and Elderberries! Oh, my!

Scarlet Cup mushrooms, the first showy color that peeks from the forest floor, are one of only a few mushrooms that can grow when conditions are below freezing. They have been in their chilly element these past weeks.

In a day’s time, some sort of perennial Lily did finally burst forth, growing inches in hours! Now that is truly Spring!

This weekend has been rainy, though still below-average temperatures, and will be the game changer. The grass looks greener overnight, enticing the rabbits and deer to munch on the vernal goodness. And the Crabapples will soon be blooming!

The wait is not over, but the things we want from Spring—warmer temps, leaves, green grass, and flowers—are manifesting as I write. It’s hard to wait for what we want. We live in such an instantaneous self-gratifying world (thanks technology), and it has trained us to be impatient when things don’t go our way. But waiting for and anticipating something that is exciting for us can be a gift in and of itself. I remember wanting my own horse but having to wait for years before I had earned enough money from cleaning out stalls at our neighbor’s horse farm. I remember wanting to be married to Chris, to see him every day but waiting in different states until our wedding day. The conditions have to be right—for Spring, for buying things, for getting married. And sometimes, we don’t get what we want—the conditions are never just right, our will or desire is not enough to overcome the odds, another person is unwilling or unable, or things are so beyond our control that we cannot get what we want or even need. But the things that pull us forward are limitless—the Spirit of the Universe never sleeps. Spring will arrive, then Summer, Fall, and Winter. It may not be on our time schedule of wants, but it will happen. That’s reassuring. Waiting also gets us out of our own heads and our thinking that we are the Kings and Queens of the world. We are not. We have things to learn—patience may be one of them. And sometimes, oftentimes, the outcome—whether a flowering Spring, a wonderful horse, or a beautiful marriage—is definitely worth the wait.

Beside Myself

April 18, 2021 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

I was beside myself this week. And I had moments of satisfaction and happiness. But mostly I was beside myself—overcome with worry and anger and extreme sadness. We have made progress—good, satisfying progress on our church becoming a trauma responsive church. It is a nascent initiative that holds great promise, and it is extremely difficult to navigate into a practical, workable existence. Especially in a week like this one. The George Floyd trial wrapping up in Minneapolis. Another shooting death of a young black man just north of there. And so many other mass shootings in just one week’s time that I can’t even keep track of them. Then a friend with a devastating diagnosis, and the untimely death of yet another who deeply felt the pain of the world. Trauma upon trauma is piling up on us all, and the more vulnerable are paying an unsustainable, body- and soul-pounding price. And with each and every one trauma, the ripples of distress and devastation roll out into the lives of families and to society as a whole. I am not exaggerating.

This week’s weather has depicted the ups and downs of the week at large. A beautiful, life-sustaining rain gave rise to opening leaf and flower buds. After the long Winter months, there is a hold-your-breath moment when dormant trees and plants begin to show that life is once again flowing and growing. With a sigh of relief and wonder, I whisper, “There it is.”

‘Life-sustaining’ is a phrase that should be on our lips and our minds in all we do. Is this a life-, person-, earth-sustaining practice? Animals, plants, and people alike respond to practices and gestures that sustain life.

By mid-week, clouds rolled in again. As snow fell, I sent a card to a dear old friend, happily baked a cake for a young one, and laughed on a phone call I received.

The news can be devastating and yet we put one foot in front of the other. We gather our food and nourish our bodies. We help one another the best we can, even when our attempts seem to fall far short of what is actually needed.

We are all in this together—in this society, on this Earth, in this time in history.

By the end of the week, we had sunshine, warmth, and blue skies.

Sun-drenched catkins will produce pollen or seeds before leafing out in the life cycle of a Poplar tree.

Honeysuckle shrubs produce leaves before flowering. Every Spring plant and animal is intent on creating and sustaining life. Therein we have Hope and Beauty.

The phrases ‘beside myself’ and ‘out of my mind’ are used to describe the dissociative ways we deal with overwhelm and trauma. We are not ourselves—literally—in body or mind when events or occurrences produce such overpowering sensations and feelings. We make space, turn away from, become ‘not like me,’ do things and say things we may regret later. We step out of our bodies and ‘lose our minds’ when the trauma is ‘too much,’ when the discord between our life view and reality is so great that we literally can’t stand it. Many people are experiencing ‘too much.’ A common way for people to turn away and make space from overwhelm is to try to ‘calm’ our bodies with something that makes us feel better—I tend to use food, others use alcohol, drugs, shopping, or gambling. They are coping mechanisms that can lead to addiction and to other collateral damage. So while it seems like a good idea in the moment and can actually give us some relief temporarily, in the long run, it can be much more problematic. So what do we do? We start small. We find small things that give us a feeling of relief or happiness or satisfaction. I do qigong every morning to stretch and move my body. Yoga works. Running works. I walk in Nature to calm my body and mind. Hobbies work. Reading works. Connecting with others in some form of affirming communication is probably one of the greatest life-sustaining practices we can do. Love and acceptance activates the parasympathetic branch of our autonomic nervous system that calms our body and minds. And once again, life is flowing and growing.

The World Beneath Our Feet

April 4, 2021 by Denise Brake 4 Comments

Give me the man who will surrender the whole world for a moss or a caterpillar, and impracticable visions for a simple human delight.

The man who authored this quote was Bruce Frederick Cummings, born in England in 1889. He published a book of diary entries entitled The Journal of a Disappointed Man in 1919. That was also the year he died at the age of thirty from multiple sclerosis. It was only in 1915 when he was rejected from serving in World War I that he learned of his diagnosis and prognosis. Afterwards, he wrote eloquently of his struggle from his ‘naturalist at heart’ perspective. He wrote about his impending death:

To me the honour is sufficient of belonging to the universe — such a great universe, and so grand a scheme of things. Not even Death can rob me of that honour. For nothing can alter the fact that I have lived; I have been I, if for ever so short a time. And when I am dead, the matter which composes my body is indestructible—and eternal, so that come what may to my ‘Soul,’ my dust will always be going on, each separate atom of me playing its separate part — I shall still have some sort of a finger in the pie. When I am dead, you can boil me, burn me, drown me, scatter me — but you cannot destroy me: my little atoms would merely deride such heavy vengeance. Death can do no more than kill you.

It was because of the rain the day before that the world beneath our feet burst into a lush, colorful canvas. Last weekend’s rain was the first substantial Spring shower of the season, the one to wash away the accumulated grime from Winter’s melted snow piles and the one to anoint the dormant ground with Nature’s blessing. The first to respond to that blessing is an array of mosses and lichens that have been covered with snow most of the Winter. Without traditional plant structures like roots, stems, leaves, and flowers, they absorb water and nutrients like a sponge—plumping up, greening up, and livening up.

A bed of moss makes a desirable, protective seedbed for tiny new trees, helping to keep the ground moist for germination.

Since mosses and lichens have no roots or structures to transport water throughout their system, most grow close to the ground so as not to dry out. When a tree is ‘grounded,’ moss will soon overtake it.

Young saplings looked like they were wearing ‘mossy pants.’

Deer tracks dug into the soft, squishy carpet of rain-drenched moss.

Lime green Plume moss pushed aside the dark purple, rolled leaves of late Fall.

Mosses and lichens are an essential part of our ecosystem, absorbing carbon dioxide and other pollutants.

Little stars of Juniper moss twinkled among the Jack Pine needles.

The forest floor, that world beneath our feet, is a community of sticks, leaves, grasses, insects, mosses, seeds, bacteria, lichens, fungi, and others—all living and working together in a symbiotic relationship.

When mosses ‘bloom,’ they produce sporophyte stalks and spores—after the rain, they were already getting to the business of reproduction.

The ‘red coat’ protuberances of British Soldier lichens are eye-catching in the early Spring monochrome…

…as is this light green lichen on the dark wood of a Pine.

Waves of wispy grasses are matted against the moss from the weight of Winter’s snow.

But on this day after the rain, the rejuvenated moss prevails.

Glittering Wood moss—isn’t that the most magical name!?—crawls over a log.

A golden lichen, Reindeer moss (which is also a lichen), and Trumpet lichen are intricate pieces of art on the forest floor.

The world beneath our feet is often overlooked in the practicality of getting from one place to another and in the mundaneness of green and brown. It only takes a closer look to discover a world of infinite variety and exquisite artistry. We cannot abandon ‘impracticable visions’ or ‘the whole world’ in pursuit of a moss or a lichen, but a balancing of those extravagant, exuberant goals with a simple human delight will ground us in our humanity. What would be your pursuit if you knew your days were numbered? A year of a global pandemic and millions of lives lost and grieving should shake us to question that, just as Bruce Cummings did after learning of his prognosis. May the tiny Trumpet Lichens proclaim exultant victory over death, and may we all be anointed with Nature’s blessings. Amen.

A Primal Rhythm of Motherhood

May 12, 2019 by Denise Brake 4 Comments

Things were going fine. I had done this before. I was patient and attentive. We all knew the routine. Then something changed. Most Moms have experienced that moment. It seems like there is calm before the storm, but in reality the energy is gathering. Something on the inside isn’t right—tension and discomfort are building. The crying begins…and doesn’t stop. Diapers are changed; food is offered. Rocking and walking and bouncing all in one continuous, gentle movement is the motion of motherhood. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. This particular time, it didn’t. As her distress continued, my inability to comfort her distressed me. Soon we were both crying. Walking, rocking, bouncing, crying—a primal rhythm of attachment and motherhood.

In our quest for Spring this week, we achieved a landmark—the green blush of new leaves on the stands of Aspen trees down by the River. The Oaks, Maples, and Ashes will soon obscure the Aspens, but for now, they allow us to see through them, past them, to the tender green beginners.

And then the rain came—the nourishment of new growth. It was exactly what we needed, what was expected.

Onion-like Chives shot up out of the ground while Creeping Thyme slowly greened behind them.

The stems on the Ostrich Ferns s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d in spurts of growth, even as the fiddleheads continued to hold their curls.

That afternoon, the rain changed to snow. The wind picked up. What seemed like a calm Spring rain became an energetic throwback to Winter.

The wind seemed to be coming from all directions—the snow fell in swirls, the Hemlocks twirled. Spring hope was blurred out by the tension and cries of ‘Winter!’

Eventually the wind and snow subsided, but the snow stayed on the ground through the chilly night.

By noon, the snow was gone, the calm of hope and Spring had returned. Did we really have snow just hours before?! Were we distressed just yesterday?

I don’t remember how long my baby and I walked, rocked, bounced, and cried. Time isn’t a thing during such holy moments. As my tears fell and melded with hers, I didn’t know it as a holy moment—that realization only came with the third and last baby. I do know, however, that we did it together. We weathered the storm of distress together. We got through to the calm of rest and hope together. That’s what this love-like-no-other-love means to me. That’s what the holy moments of motherhood are to me.

Unfinished Business

March 17, 2019 by Denise Brake 3 Comments

Remember that childhood game used to decide who gets to do something or more often who doesn’t have to do something? Rock, paper, scissors? Count to three while pounding one fist in your other hand and on the third count you make a scissors, rock, or paper sign. Paper covers rock, scissors cut paper, rock crushes scissors. That’s what our mid-March weather has been like! If we had hopeful thoughts of Spring, Mother Nature crushed those ideas last weekend with a storm that dumped ten inches of snow on our accumulated heap. Winter has some unfinished business.

The snow was wet and heavy and smothered the evergreens with its power. Branches bowed to the ground, broke from the trunk, and got stuck in the snow.

The heavy hand of Winter was not letting go of its reign without one last(?) battle.

Three days later, Spring’s rains, backed by a whoosh of just-warm-enough temperatures, cut through the snow like a warm knife through butter. The rains came, and the snow melted.

The official beginning of Spring is Wednesday, and she means business. Though pushed back, she will not be denied. Snow and ice are no match for the liquid warmth of her rain.

We’ve had a ceasefire in the last couple of days in the battle between Winter’s unfinished business and Spring’s compelling unveiling. The temperatures have ducked down below freezing again, slowing the melting and flooding while laying booby traps of slick, icy patches. Beware of where you step.

But we have another player in this battle of the seasons—the power of the Sun who has returned to our hemisphere to play. Sun covers all with a renewed power. He works on the snow even with Winter in control of the temperatures. Sol joins hands with Spring to move us forward. He reveals the dirt of Winter that was somehow unseen in these months of snowy beauty. The fireball excites the dormant current of energy stored in every tree and shrub, and the warmth of that energy melts a ring around each trunk.

The melting snow reveals another season with a smidgen of unfinished business. Autumn leaves are sandwiched between layers of snow, skeleton-like in their loss of chlorophyll and organic matter. Perhaps Winter moves along their decay, so when the green grass takes over in a flush of Spring, the old leaves will finally be integrated into the soil, completing that part of the cycle once again.

We still have plenty of snow and a fair amount of time where the battle of Winter and Spring plays out. It is familiar and necessary. It is the way of Mother Nature, with unfinished business from each season slowly and surely becoming integrated into the earth. How do we handle our unfinished business? There are pieces of our past that seamlessly integrate into who we are as a person, other pieces are up for examination and debate, and still others are hidden, denied, or ignored—the past that won’t let go of us—our unfinished business. How do we know it’s unfinished? It still affects us—nightmares, illnesses, insomnia, overreactions, projections, and repetitions of similar events like accidents, to name a few. These pieces need to be brought into the light of day, questioned, listened to, and accepted. It is the most loving thing we can do for ourselves. Bit by bit, story by story, day by day, tear by tear, the finishing happens. It becomes integrated—it dissolves into our souls, minds, and bodies—completing that part of the cycle in order to feed our next season of life.

Traveling Through the Storm

October 29, 2017 by Denise Brake 3 Comments

“And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through….you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” —Haruki Murakami

We left home going home. A tale of two homes, or three or more. We left this home we live in right now and headed to the birthplace home of my mother, to my young adult home, to the place we called home with our three children. And we traveled through a storm.

As stressful as the getting ready to go and out the door is for me, I love it when I’m settled in the car, and the trip has begun. It’s a delicious feeling. Even on the road more traveled, there are new things to see. Even when traveling at 60 mph, I like to take pictures of things that capture my attention and say things that words cannot describe.

It was warm when we left, and as we traveled southwest, the temperature rose to 72 degrees, and the clouds gathered in an arching wall.

As we crashed through that wall of warmth and clouds and wind and pressure, the rain began to fall, streaking the windows with rivulets of water with no destination.

The temperature dropped by twenty degrees.

Like we were entering the Land of Oz. The Land of Oz is a teaching place disguised in the outward beauty of rainbows, bright colors, good witches and bad witches, and storybook characters. It’s a place of fun and adventure, of fear and danger, that lulls us like poppies and makes us forget the purpose of our journey. Until we remember. And then, everything we have planted, everything that was planted in us, is ready for harvest.

Harvest is hard work and time-consuming, but it is what we are supposed to do. The reward is in the harvesting. The benefit is in the gathering. The lesson is in the reaping. The profit is in the yielding to the infinite knowing inside ourselves.

“I’ll be here for you after the storm blows through and your skies are blue again and you’re back to you again.” —Maddie and Tae

Every home has its stressful storms. And with those storms, we can enter the Land of Oz with its fairy tale solutions, or we can pull back the curtain, uncover the fake powers that are ruling our lives, and do the hard work of our own personal harvest. That’s what the storms are all about—to change us into new people, to say things that words have a hard time describing, to see the new things on the road more traveled, and to settle in to the delicious feeling of journeying down the yellow-brick road that leads us home.

A Total Eclipse of the Eclipse

August 27, 2017 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

I had high expectations of Monday’s eclipse. The media had prepared us well with scientific information, beautiful illustrations and photos of previous celestial wonders, and Amazon had plenty of viewing glasses to purchase. The Great American Eclipse was to make its way across the heart of our country in its totality. Minnesota wouldn’t see complete darkness, but an almost total eclipse is exciting, nonetheless. The sun was shining on my Monday morning walk…then the clouds rolled in. As E-time approached, thunder rolled and rumbled, and rain fell, along with my high hopes.

One of our Bluebirds of happiness flew to the Maple just outside the window, perching on the side of the tree, reminding me that blue skies would come again. (Tuesday’s sky was blue and cloudless.)

Even in the midst of my dashed eclipse expectations, there was tropical beauty right outside my door in the rain—a banana tree and the pretty pink flowers of Mandevilla.

Beyond the hype and excitement of the eclipse this week was the reality of the waning days of summer. First day of school pictures filled my Facebook feed. Cooler than normal temperatures necessitated bringing out the fleeces and sweatshirts. The tomatoes are finally ready to eat! The apples are turning red. Sumac leaves are beginning to turn crimson. Wild plums are ripening.

And our first ever hazel nuts are forming under the curved leaves and inside the fringed husks!

I never say summer is sweet on the humid, hot days (I mean, what do I expect?!), but as August winds down and Summer Sweet blooms and releases its fragrant scent, I am reminded that summer is indeed a sweet time of year.

On the other side of dashed expectations and humid-drenched disappointments is surprise and possibility. What is eating our Milkweed? Monarch caterpillars, of course. Not this time! The hungry, similar-colored caterpillars are the larval stage of the Milkweed Tiger Moth (a very drab, gray-colored moth.)

And look at this delicate web of water droplets I found in the grass below the milkweed!

At the junction of old and new soil and grass around our patio, a fungus grew that looked like a worn, well-oiled leather catcher’s mitt. Where did that come from?

Then there is the delicate surprise of a common object seen in a different light—the bird’s nest bundle of seeds of Queen Anne’s lace and a pincushion center of Black-eyed Susan.

There’s a book titled Expectation Hangover by Christine Hassler. I haven’t read it, but she defines Expectation Hangover as “the myriad of undesirable feelings or thoughts present when one or a combination of the following things occur: a desired outcome does not occur; a desired outcome does occur but does not produce the feelings or results we expected; our personal and/or professional expectations are unmet by ourselves or another; an undesired, unexpected event occurs that is in conflict with what we want or planned.” I’ve had a few of those in my lifetime and know very well the toll it takes on time, energy, and self-worth. My high hopes of experiencing the eclipse were tempered by the meteorological predictions that didn’t favor clear skies on that day. It’s important to keep our expectations grounded in reality—what’s the science behind this or what does the history of this person show us or what can we really afford? I’m not sure it’s our expectations per se that get us into trouble, but our attachment to them. Those attachments can run deep and profound to the very soul of who we think we are. But Nature teaches us that even in the certainty of summer morphing into fall, we can discover new surprises and see things in a different light—like we’ve never seen them before. Expectations and possibilities with a grounding of reality—it’s a recipe for an awe-inspiring eclipse (or not), a sweet summer, and an authentic life.

Listening to the Silence

June 21, 2015 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

My middle growing-up years were in Pennsylvania on our little acre of hilly land, out of sight from everything, but within earshot of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Most every summer, we would pack up the Mercury wood-sided station wagon with us four kids, our little brown suitcase of ‘things to do’, and a Johnny Cash eight track tape and head west on that turnpike. Most often we would leave on Friday night after my Dad got home from working at the shop, and my parents would take turns driving, straight through, to my Grandparent’s place in South Dakota. We would arrive early Sunday morning before my Grandpa headed off to church and my Grandma put a large beef roast in the oven. It was always good to be back Home!

One evening–maybe that very first one after our long drive–my Dad was sitting on the porch stoop. I opened the door, walked out onto the porch, and asked him what he was doing. He said, “I’m listening to the Silence.” I can’t remember how old I was at the time, but I remember thinking that was a crazy thing to say! How can you listen to Silence?! He patted the cement beside him for me to sit down. He told me about hearing the crickets and frogs, the cows lowing in the paddock as they came up from the pasture to the round, wooden water tank, how the windmill squeaked as the breeze moved the blades, and how the geese chattered in the slough over the hill. We sat there together for a while, and I really started to listen for all the different sounds of the Silence on the farm.

Today is Father’s Day and the First Day of Summer! I smile when I realize it’s 10 o’clock in the evening, and there’s still a hint of light outside. I love it when I can go outside with no coat and no shoes! I laugh at our dog when we go out to get the mail, and she rolls in the warm grass and watches me walk to the mailbox. I marvel at all the bird mamas and daddys who are flying, hunting, and taking care of their babies.

Summer is…my most favorite flower–perennial Blue Flax…

blooms and birdhouses…

rain…

bumblebees…

and birds.

Summer is being outside with Nature, toes in the grass, head under the stars, fish on the line, sun on skin, and listening to the Silence.

Thinking back on those 1500 mile trips with four kids in the car, the constant buzz of turnpike traffic at our house, and the din of diesel engines working as a truck mechanic, it’s no wonder my Dad wanted the calm and quiet of an evening on the farm in South Dakota. That special memory of me and my Dad has stayed in my mind and heart for decades, and I continue to appreciate the quiet sounds of Nature. Happy Summer to all of you, and if you can’t be with your Dad today, I hope you can call to mind a special memory of him while listening to the Silence of Nature.

Happy New Year from Nature!

April 14, 2015 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

There is a subtle yet palpable excitement that I feel at this time of year. The colorful, organized seed racks are on prominent display at grocery, hardware, and do-it-yourself stores. Established nurseries and greenhouses have been busy for months sowing seeds into flats for vegetables and flowers. The pop-up garden centers are setting up their hooped greenhouses on pavement, surrounded by pallets of fertilizer, potting soil, and mulch. And the Spring plant material is arriving!

I also love the coming alive of the trees, shrubs, and perennials in our yard and woods. The quickly evolving changes demand a daily walk-about to see what has emerged from the dormant branches or the warming earth. After a fairly dry winter and early spring, the heavy gray skies on Sunday showered us with a half-inch of much-needed rain.

The grass turned green before our eyes, and the maple tree flowers opened their red buds to pompoms of scarlet and yellow.

A leopard frog leaped through the yard towards the house, her belly swollen with eggs.

Gray pussy willow catkins and yellow-flowering forsythia are the harbingers of Spring.

While the demure pussy willow is often overlooked, it is hard to ignore the sunshine bright forsythia when the flowers burst forth from their origami buds.

The rain prompted the growth of day lilies and irises, rising like the phoenix from the ash of dried leaves and last year’s rubble.

Rosettes of sedum popped through the river rocks on the warm, southwest side of the house.

A crinkly raspberry leaf unfurled from the ivory bud, shimmering and full of potential.

Clusters of lime green needles emerged from the woody stems of one of our petite larch trees. Larch are deciduous conifers that can grow 80-120 feet tall. Our trees are less than a yard tall–babies with a long life before them.

Sprays of buds adorned the lilac shrubs, each plump green leaf bud tinged with violet, foreshadowing the fragrant flowers yet to come.

I saw my first Robin last evening, the feathered harbinger of Spring. The vest of red-orange covering his rotund belly was bright against the gray tree branches. Welcome home to the North Country!

Spring is the Happy New Year in the seasonal life of Nature. It is a time of anticipation and excitement for a new growing season for the diverse Kingdom of Plants and for the next generation to take its place in the Kingdom of Animals. Plants embody the literal translation of ‘turning over a new leaf,’ while we embrace new beginnings and fresh starts.

The beginning of a New Year on January 1st has little data to prove itself beyond the calendar hanging on the wall. But Nature’s New Year has abundant and hearty proof that we can all begin anew and make a fresh start! When things seem impossible, we must remember to witness a tree transforming from a gray skeleton to a richly robed specimen. When the music is gone from our lives, we need only to experience the symphony of spring peepers or the melody of robins to know at our deepest level that Hope lives and sings in our soul.

The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever!

–Henry David Thoreau

An October Day of Contrasts

October 29, 2014 by Denise Brake 1 Comment

When I woke up, I heard the slow plopping of rain drops through the leaf-clogged downspout outside the bedroom window. It was our best chance of rain in weeks, but it didn’t sound very promising. The dry weather at this time of year is wonderful for farmers harvesting beans and corn, but the trees, shrubs, and perennials need good, soaking rains in preparation for the harsh winter. Our sandy soil and the drying winter winds can zap the moisture away from the roots and the branches of the evergreen trees in particular, especially the young ones. So more watering will need to be done.

The drizzle had collected, then streaked down the screens of the porch, dotting and striping the landscape beyond.

The Diablo Ninebark had brightened to its fall color from the dark purple-red, and the honeysuckles had suddenly turned golden.

The heart-leaved bergenia had started its leaf by leaf color change, living up to its name in shape and color.

Apricot and rose-colored leaves on the gray dogwood looked vibrant against the drab, gray day.

Though the leaves were falling off the trees, a few flowers were still blooming–violet spikes of lavender, a rogue Canadian thistle, a rose-colored mum, and this daisy fleabane.

A young Nannyberry viburnum was the scaffolding for a spider’s web that connected to the golden honeysuckle, a vivid picture in front of the old oak tree trunk.

The leaves of the lupines were as green as ever, looking almost out-of-place in the autumn palette.

But the most amazing feature of the foggy woods was the tall, stately Monkshood! When most things are going dormant, these five foot tall spikes of violet-blue flowers are just coming into their own!

The beautiful late-bloomer dislikes hot weather, will grow in partial shade, and is poisonous, so the deer and rabbits don’t bother it. Each individual flower is shaped like a hood or helmet, giving rise to its common names.

A day of contrasts–the rain we had and the rain we needed, the gray, foggy day and the bright autumn colors, the dying, dormant plants and the vibrant blooming flowers.

I love the fact that the Monkshood blooms so late in the year–it’s so unexpected! And unlike the daisy fleabane that can easily be missed, the bright violet-blue flowers grab your attention and your admiration. Our lives are filled with contrasts, and how we look at them often determines the quality of our lives. Can we see the value and the goodness of one side of things even as that same thing causes more work or pain for us? Can we appreciate the brightness that may or may not be so noticeable on a dreary day? Can we be the sturdy scaffolding that holds the delicate, transient things in our lives? I will probably chop down that rogue thistle that announced itself with its conspicuous purple flower–I can acknowledge its beauty and know that I don’t want it seeding itself in our woods. But I will hold all these contrasts in my heart–with love–for it is within love that we can grow and bloom, die back and go dormant, and grow and bloom again.

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