NorthStarNature

Appreciating the Beauty and Wisdom of Nature

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Mesmerizing Middle

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I’m going to begin in the middle. In the middle of our hike, that is. And only for one photograph, one minute of time, one funny little revelation. It inspires all of my hikes, and with reflection, it really is the basis of why I take photos, write this blog, and share it with you all. We walked across a ‘floating’ wooden bridge over an inlet to a shallow pond halfway through our hike at Mississippi River County Park. Duckweed has been covering the slow-moving inlet water and much of the pond for months now. On this day and all those going forward into Autumn, leaves had fallen onto the thick duckweed, creating a collage. I peered over the edge of the bridge, staring into the pea-soup green water. Since the bridge ‘floats’ on top of the water, every movement we made radiated out into the water and duckweed, producing movement and patterns through the bright green medium. “This is kind of mesmerizing,” I told my patiently waiting husband. With his usual dry humor, Chris broke my nature-spell by proclaiming his take on it all, “Makes me want to jump in and go for a swim!” I laughed at the absurdity of it, imagining his rising from the water as the incredible green hulk!

Nature is mesmerizing for me. I see things and wonder…who lives here? How did the tree die? How many young ones have fledged from this high-rise home?

Look at this pearly shell! Scooped up by the water from the sandy shore and placed on this rock for a moment in the long trend of time until a bigger wave sweeps it back to the Mississippi waters.

Seaweed and floating Willow leaves have their own kind of enchantment as the waves move through them.

In the full green of Summer, vines are often overlooked, but at this time of year, they show themselves with changing colors, as with red Virginia Creeper, orange-berried Bittersweet, or yellowing Wild Cucumber. Wild Grape vines and Wild or Bur Cucumber vines can absolutely enshroud all other vegetation or structures with their robust twining and climbing. As some of the other leaves fall, Canada Moonseed vine comes into its own with hanging purple fruit that looks a bit like edible Wild Grapes, but in actuality, is poisonous.

Another common vine is Virgin’s Bower. It is a type of wild Clematis with indistinct, small white flowers. Its fruit and seedheads are the fascinating part of this vine—the wispy tails of the fruit dry into puffs that inspire its common name of Old Man’s Beard.

In the middle of summer, Mississippi River County Park becomes very monochromatic and homogeneous after its enthralling Spring of woodland/floodplain flowers. Few plants are blooming, trails can be wet with rain and heavy with mosquitoes, and the cons often outweigh the pros for hiking there. But Autumn comes, and the park once again embraces its color and beauty.

The shallow pond in the middle of the park reflects the golden trees, provides a home for Painted Turtles, and grows Monet-worthy Lily Pads.

Colors of all shades and hues begin to pop out of the greenery. The process of the energy-producing shutdown that happens to most plants in the Northland is fascinating!

And then there’s the Sunlight. It shines on the color, over the brown seedheads of Monarda and Indian Grass, and through the green leaves of Stiff Goldenrod and others. It is the fire that fuels Spring growth, Summer production, and Fall decline. It entrances us because the Sun is just as important to us as to the plants.

Poet extraordinaire Mary Oliver wrote: “Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” It is the way I live my life. It is the reason I started North Star Nature. It is my fascination with all the mesmerizing aspects of Nature that impel me to write my blog week after week for over eight and a half years now. To my readers, I thank you and hope you have been astonished along with me. Nature deserves your attention. It deserves your love. It deserves your caregiving. I hope you have an enchanting Autumn!

The Partnership of Art Between Kelly and Nature

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The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.  –Michelangelo

From Kansas City we flew to Austin, Texas, home to our first-born and her husband.  It had been three years since we were there for their wedding, and we were all excited to do more exploring of this city and landscape that had captured their hearts.  One bright, sunny morning we drove to the University of Texas campus where the Blanton Museum of Art stands in grand Texas style.  Our destination was the recently completed standing work of art and architecture by Ellsworth Kelly, appropriately entitled ‘Austin.’  The artist gifted the design concept to the Blanton in 2015 before his death, and it was completed in 2018.  Kelly was enamored by the architecture of cathedrals in Paris when stationed there in World War II.  The structure is shaped like a cross, igloo-like with curved roof lines and brilliant white exterior.

The south, east, and west sides of the building are adorned with colored glass windows—the ‘color grid’ at the entrance, ‘tumbling squares’ on the east face…

…and ‘starburst’ on the west.

The shining white exterior is covered in 1,569 limestone panels from Alicante, Spain—each block a story and work of art in and of itself.

The entrance door is made from native Texas Live Oak, repurposed from some other life.  I like how the metal handle is burnished from expectant hands reaching for entry.

Once inside, I was shocked by how empty it was, though I don’t really know what I was expecting.  Straight ahead was the fourth, north-facing arm of the cross, and nestled in the curve of that arm rose a totem made of Redwood logged in the nineteenth century and reclaimed from the bottom of a riverbed.  New life and rich patina from a century-old, forgotten log of a beautiful Redwood tree!

The colored glass windows were made from handblown glass by Franz Mayer of Munich.  The ‘color grid’ was a theme used by Ellsworth Kelly in much of his other art…

…as was the spectrum of colors used in the east and west windows, reminiscent of refracted light through a glass prism or millions of drops of water that creates a rainbow.  The outside light directed the colors onto the interior ceiling and walls…

…and even reached over to its opposite window to reflect yellow on purple, blue on red, and pink on blue.

The ‘starburst’ was my favorite, here along with two of my favorite people.

The real partnership of art between Kelly and Nature morphed into being when the sun shone directly through the ‘color grid’ windows onto the walls, onto the floor, and onto the black and white relief panels that line the walls.  The panels are made from marble—the white marble sourced from Carrara, Italy where Michelangelo chose his stone and the black from a quarry in Belgium.  Kelly, a life-long atheist, conceived the fourteen panels as abstract versions of the Catholic Stations of the Cross.

The black and white non-colors represent something basic and elemental and often oppositional, such as light and dark or good and evil.

The floor of ‘Austin’ is black granite from the state of Georgia.  The sun-shining colors illuminate the dark stone with a rich, almost neon effect.  Whatever the time of day, the art, the picture of color on granite or marble, changes, morphs, and becomes new again.

 

Artists and Nature have been partnering for eons—from cave dwellers with pigments made from minerals, charcoal, and limestone mixed with spit or animal fats to Native people with dyes made from barks, leaves, and flowers to Michelangelo with his huge blocks of marble. (“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”)  Nature has been the inspiration, the means, or the medium for practically every artist.  Ellsworth Kelly’s ‘Austin’ displays the rocks, wood, and rainbow colors in a simple, naturally elegant, and compelling way.  He envisioned his work of art as a site for joy and contemplation—the same qualities that Nature or a chapel offers to all of us.  What happens to us when we immerse ourselves in art of some form or in Nature?  What parts of ourselves do we consciously disown yet display in full sight through our art?  I think art offers us a reflection of the rich patina of our lives, complete with the building blocks that have pieced us together—each a story and work of art, in and of itself.  Each one of us is a refracted ray of light from divine perfection that shatters into some unique color, and together we partner to create a true work of art.

The Light in the World

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“Where there is darkness, light…”   –from the Prayer of Saint Francis

There were two times in my life when I was in profound darkness.  The first time was when I was very young—before many memories were etched into my brain, and when my brain, in all its wisdom, sequestered that darkness into a walled-off place so I could continue to smile and run and explore and be a child.  The second time was forty-three years later when the walled-off place suddenly burst open, spewing all the feelings and emotions of that earlier time into my mind, my body, and my soul.  I could no longer smile, I could barely move, and my soul felt like it was dying.  There were other times in my life—between those two times—when I peered into the darkness of the abyss, when I stood precariously on the edge fearing any misstep that would plunge me into that place I did not want to go, could not yet go.  During the second darkness, there were a few amazing beams of light that guided me through—my therapist, my pastor and friend.  There was the warm, caring light of Chris who pulled double duty with the chores and work, even when it all felt confusing and overwhelming.  And there was the brilliant light of my children—one who was already gone to college, one who was on the cusp of leaving for school, and one who still needed my day-to-day presence.  

I am acutely aware of the toxic darkness that resides in our world—where children are intentionally separated from their parents, where violence permeates homes and lives, where people are going hungry and sleeping on the streets, where illnesses are unable to be treated, and a list too long goes on.  But I am also joyously connected to the light in our world—the life-giving sunshine in our daily lives, the hope and comfort of spiritual belief and practice, and the day-to-day words and actions of good and kind people.  The early morning and evening sunshine has been lighting up the landscape around our place, noticeable as we sit on the porch or walk through the yard.  The coming or going of darkness is emblazoned by sunlight as it reaches from the horizon through trees and leaves.

It illuminates the seedheads of grass, transforming the natural color to pure white light.

Ninebark shrubs flower and fruit in little clusters that often get lost among the leaves.  The sunlight reveals some hidden fruits.

Wispy needles of a Larch tree dance green and white in the light, casting narrow shadows on themselves.  We are all a combination of light and shadow.

Life-giving food made from life-giving sunlight and soil is part of the process of transformation for a caterpillar eating Milkweed and becoming a Monarch butterfly.

How does sunlight impact a rock?  It beams light energy into the hard, seemingly impervious surface—some gets reflected, making the rock look brighter, while other gets absorbed and transformed into heat.

When a place looks dark, light can shine on unexpected places making the whole picture look different.  Often our help, our light, comes from people and places we never expected.

A constant source of pleasure for me is the ever-changing way the evening sunlight radiates through the leaves of a Banana tree on our patio.  The red edges turn to fire, the veins are unveiled, shadows deepen the green color in areas, and drops of pure white light drip from and through this living, breathing organism.

Sometimes the sun doesn’t shine on our face, but enlightens and enlivens our heart where we need it most, so that later our true beauty will be revealed for all the world to see.

Light also exposes dangerous, harmful, or annoying things that go unseen in the shadows and darkness.  Red aphids on a sunflower stem glowed in the sunlight, and vines and webs were clearly seen in the light of the sun and the lens of the camera.  Sometimes one has to look closely with unflinching courage in order to eradicate the harmful things.

The result of being aware of the light and the darkness, of looking honestly and closely at our own heart and soul, of asking or allowing or finding the help we need, is the revelation of an inner and outer beauty that displays our true essence.

 

Our brains are amazing structures that protect us during overwhelming events by sequestering sensations and emotions to a walled-off place so we can continue to function at some level.  But they never disappear, and time does not abate the intensity of our feelings.  Sometimes the walled-off place is touched or triggered by a sensation or situation, and we react instantly, unconsciously, and we or someone around us wonder where those words or actions came from.  That’s why the second darkness is so important—to slowly know and release the sensations and feelings that have been clouding our life, so we are no longer afraid of the dark abyss, because it is gone.  We all need help at times with our shadows and darkness, and we are all called to be sowers of light.  A Minnesota author Kent Nerburn wrote a book Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace—Living in the Spirit of the Prayer of Saint Francis.  He wrote how Saint Francis went forth in the world to give his light to others, how at times it was an act of pure will, and how fervently he believed that every small gesture of light was needed.  Nerburn wrote, “We must remind ourselves that, though our lives are small and our acts seem insignificant, we are generative elements of this universe, and we create meaning with each act that we perform or fail to perform.”  He continues this compelling call to action with “All our actions on this earth have eternal life.  It is up to us to determine whether our actions have a life that increases the light in the world or adds to the darkness.”  May we know our shadows, may we light up the landscape of our world, and may we let the luminescence of our true essence shine on.