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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.

Flowing Together Like a Great River

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I grew up caring for animals. Always cats and dogs. Sometimes chickens and ducks. Later horses and cattle. I would feed them, make sure they had water, help build their shelters, and take care of their wounds. I hauled hay, cleaned out stalls, helped pull a calf, and doctored pink eye. Taking care of animals teaches responsibility, selflessness (chores come first), and hard work. I loved it, and I loved them.

I’ve been a little obsessed lately about what people care about and how it seems to be skewed in some odd directions. Can you make a list of things you really care about? And how do you know you really care about something? Spend time doing the work of caring? Spend money in support of the cared about thing? Give energy to the entity, relationship, or cause high on the caring list? And then, what is the outcome of your caring? That’s often even harder to identify and articulate. Certainly we gave time, money, and energy to caring for our animals—in return they gave us food, protection, fun, love, livelihood, and lessons, to name a few.

When looking up the definition of ‘care,’ I was surprised that the first meaning of the noun was ‘suffering of mind: grief.’ The second was ‘a disquieted state of mixed uncertainty, apprehension, and responsibility.’ The third was ‘painstaking or watchful attention.’ The verb care was similar. Only later on the list of meanings for both was desire, regard, interest, or fondness mentioned. The first definition actually gets to the crux of care—if what we really care about is ‘taken away,’ suffering of mind is sure to follow.

Two weeks ago we pulled out of our driveway on the Great River Road and hours later drove the Great River Road into tiny Cassville, Wisconsin. We left the Mississippi River at times to expedite our trip, but the force of it was ever present on our minds. We returned to Cassville to bury Chris’ sister’s remains beside her parents and infant brother. The four and a half months since her death had taken the edge off our grief, but our disquieted minds still desired the closure of a burial. The permanence of a burial, along with prayers and blessings for the deceased and for those caring, grieving people left to live, is a sealing of that chapter of life.

After seeing the flooding the Great River unleashed in our area, we were curious to see what was happening in Cassville at the little resort cabin we had reserved that was the favorite of Chris’ folks. The floodwaters had risen to the edge of the cabins but had started to recede by the time we got there.

Our first visitor to the deck overlooking the River was a tiny Hummingbird. Soon after, we discovered a pair of Robins had a nest in the Birch tree that provided shade from the western sunlight. The male Robin took great care to bring food to his mate who warmed the eggs in the nest they had built.

The receding floodwaters and subsequent mud provided a perfect playground for a pair of Killdeer and their fluffy, long-legged offspring. Their halting scurrying, bobbing, and distinct high-pitched chattering made them endearing neighbors.

The people-free, flooded dock was a great place for the Northern Map Turtles to bask in the sun. I didn’t even see the little ones in the bright sunlight when I was taking the photo of the big one. The next day we saw one floating down the River on a log—I think they are glad for this warm Spring weather, too!

Across the slough on an island was a dead tree that provided the perfect lookout for an ever-watchful Eagle.

It was good to be in Cassville beside the River. The cabin hadn’t changed much since the folks had stayed there, and my mind easily ‘saw’ them standing against the pine-paneled walls or on the deck overlooking the River. These people who we so deeply cared for and loved were home again or still in this River land, in this familiar cabin, and as always, in our hearts. Evening came with softly rippled reflections. The still water seemed ‘alive’ with a humming layer of mosquitoes or other bugs that had the fish jumping. The well-fed fish had little interest in the lures and bait that Chris and Aaron were throwing into the water from the marina dock.

As dusk fell, a Spotted Sandpiper teetered about in the shallow water, and a beaver swam undeterred until Aaron threw his line too close for the rodent’s comfort.

I cared for our animals with diligence and love, and if one of them was injured or died, I suffered their injury or loss. I like the analogy of grief as suffering of mind—it normalizes the pain of loss and gives it a deep container and a long timeline in which to hold it. Time tends to ease a suffering mind in ways that make living a little more doable. I have learned that the next step is to give your suffering mind some watchful attention, some care, some love, so that life becomes more than just doable. If we think about our grief as a palpable display of caring and love, the grieving and the living flow together like a great river. When grief gets dammed up behind a supposedly protective wall, it can easily overwhelm everyday life. It displays as depression, anxiety, lethargy, anger, blame, hate, and violence. Remember, grief is a suffering mind, no matter the cause. I think Mary’s life and death taught me to bind the suffering with joyful living. As a person with Down Syndrome, she needed people to take care of her—there was always uncertainty, apprehension, and responsibility with her care (just as with all children.) And she cared deeply for the people around her, for animals, and for her job—she lived with joy. I can suffer her death and live with a peaceful heart. It takes time, energy, and oftentimes money to really care about someone, a relationship, an entity, or a cause. Caring is the business of lifting up, providing for, giving attention to, and suffering at the loss of the cared-for; it is not a frivolous business. We can all step into the great river of caring and grieving, loving and suffering—it is a force that can change the world.

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!

Walking in Sun Sparkles

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Me making decisions is an excruciating exercise for most of the people around me who do so ‘normally’ or God forbid, quickly. This decision-making can be about buying something or doing something or getting someone to do a repair or whatever. It takes me a long time to decide. It’s part of the fall-out of my perfectionism, I think—I’m afraid I will make the ‘wrong’ decision. So I look at things, read endless reviews, think about it, wonder if the quality is ‘good enough,’ question the future utility of the object, look at it again, think about the pros and cons, wonder if I have enough energy to do something, think about the ramifications, and the craziest of all, wonder what other people would do or will think. It’s exhausting just reading about the process, isn’t it?!

Mother Nature seems to have been in my indecisive mode when it came to Spring this year—she allowed the snow to melt, then made it snow; warmed things up, then froze things; showed the tiniest bit of green, then brown, brown, brown. But we no longer have to search for Spring—Mother Nature is all in on the Spring decision! It was a long time coming, but Spring is bursting forth everywhere! With the snow melt, ice melt, and Spring rains, the Mississippi River has overflowed its banks. When it comes to wildfires and floods, though we most often think of them in negative ways, there is a time and place for each of them. Fires and floods have been an integral part of our ecosystem since the beginning and bring benefits to the plants that inhabit the places that are affected. A floodplain is low lying ground around a river that periodically floods. It is rich with river sediments and nutrients and has a diverse and abundant plant population. As I walked along the River at Mississippi River County Park, I could see the flooding of lowlands and islands.

With the water and nutrients from flooding, and the warm sun of Spring, vegetation was springing from the ground. The trio of leaves of Trillium were unfurling on their long red stems—soon a single flower with three petals will emerge from the foliage for a short period of time until the whole plant dies back for the rest of the year.

The early-blooming Spring Ephemerals have an accelerated growth cycle, taking advantage of the sunshine that filters down before the trees produce their leaves. Dutchman Breeches like to grow on the drier embankments by the River.

Bloodroots were in their full glory! Their single leaf with scalloped lobes wraps like a blanket around a single flower. Often the flower blooms before the leaf unfolds.

Gooseberry shrubs are one of the first to leaf out, and the spotted leaves of White Trout Lilies carpeted the forest floor, where a week ago it was brown.

A few had begun to bloom, and the bees were already gathering pollen and sipping nectar from them.

Hairy Wild Ginger was also unfurling from its underground sleep. The low-lying red flowers were still in tight buds.

The backwaters of the Mississippi—those ponds and streams that often stay filled year-round—were also flooded. I crossed a bridge that had streams of water on both sides that I jumped across. Turtles had their sunning logs poking into the water, and when I got too close, they plopped into the pond leaving only air bubbles behind.

I thought the inland trail would be passable, but very soon after the bridge, water spilled over it. The first ‘puddle’ had an edge of vegetation and a stick that helped me pass with only a little mud on my shoes.

I spotted a Great Blue Heron in the flooded area beside the trail and knelt down to get his picture—what a handsome bird! He walked among the sun sparkles and red Maple flowers that floated on the water.

When I stood up, he flew a bit farther away where I could see his long legs, and I realized how deep the water was where he walked in the flowers and sparkles.

The next trail ‘puddle’ was long and too deep to skirt by. I realized that I wasn’t going to get through without getting my feet wet—so into the flood water I walked. It was warmer than I expected at this time of year. I must have walked through four or five flood puddles before I got to higher ground. I had walked this path many times before but never in water up to my knees!

At the end of the last flood puddle, I found a downy feather, half white, half gray, among the debris and Maple flowers. Smiling to myself, I joyfully celebrated that Spring was really here!

My indecisive decision-making is time and energy consuming, and I had an ally in Mother Nature this Spring. But like Mother Nature’s all-in commitment to Spring this week, once I make a decision, I rarely change my mind or regret the choice I made. I’m still trying to hone down my process. In certain areas of my life, I am able to make faster decisions with confidence—like the Great Blue Heron, I stepped into the flood waters without deliberation. There is a time and place for everything under heaven. In our limited thinking (compared to the Universe), we often judge things as good or bad, wise or foolish, right or wrong, and yet we don’t see the whole picture—that fire can rejuvenate, that flood waters can fuel growth and sustain lives, and that we can joyfully celebrate all the seasons of our lives.

Refresh Your Soul

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How did you welcome in the New Year last month? It was another pandemic year that the collective community of the world was glad to let go of to pursue high hopes for a better 2022. Austin, Texas held its 42nd annual Polar Bear Plunge on New Year’s Day…and we were there! Calling it a Polar Bear Plunge is a misnomer to me, coming from a state where they actually cut holes in the thick ice for people to plunge into truly frigid water! But that’s okay—it’s all relative. Austin’s Polar Bear Plunge is held at Barton Springs Municipal Pool, a natural, spring-fed pool with limestone walls, green grassy banks, and clear, turquoise water. The spring-fed water stays at a very respectable 68 to 70 degrees year round. On this New Year’s Day, the air temperature was in the 70’s (a common summer’s day temp in Minnesota) and hundreds, if not thousands of people were out jumping into the New Year and washing off the old.

After my family swam and played in the tepid waters, we walked along the well-used trail that follows Barton Creek from the pool to Lady Bird Lake. There were people running, walking, strolling, biking, etc. on one side of us, and on the other side, creatures of all sorts were swimming, sunning, resting, and plunging into their new year also. Turtles were everywhere! A group of turtles is called a ‘bale’—we saw many bales of turtles!

All along the Creek and Lady Bird Lake were huge Bald Cypress trees who love to have their feet in the water. The slow-growing, long-lived trees help prevent erosion along the banks during flash floods. The knobby protrusions at the base of the tree are called cypress ‘knees.’ They grow from horizontal roots and are theorized to transport air to the water-laden roots, along with anchoring the tree in its often precarious waterside position.

Aaron, our ever-vigilant snake guy, was the one to notice the big reptile lounging on a fallen tree branch. The Diamondback Watersnake is the largest nonvenomous water snake in North America. They like to lazily dine on fish and amphibians by dipping their heads into the water from their tree branch perches.

On another tree branch overhanging the water was a white Muscovy duck, a unique waterfowl originating in South America. They prefer to spend time in trees and less time swimming, compared to other ducks. They are more sensitive to cold than Mallard-related ducks, and they hiss instead of quack!

As Barton Creek merged into Lady Bird Lake, we saw many kayakers, paddleboarders, and rowers, along with a commotion of American Coots.

Blooming water plants floated on the Lake along with the humans in watercrafts and all sorts of waterfowl. A gorgeous, exquisitely-feathered Wood Duck greeted the New Year in his winter home.

It is a legitimate human tendency to want to wash away an old year, especially ones that were as confounding as the previous two. We want to be done with the virus, the death, the masks, the rules, and the uncertainty. We want life to be ‘normal’ again. Yet, there is something to be said by having a hardship be the experience of everyone. It helps to level the playing field, because truth be told, large numbers of people experience disease, death, unfair rules, and ongoing uncertainty even in their ‘normal’ lives. There are always ideas, habits, and behaviors we need to let go of in our lives, and the New Year is a favored time to do so. We can pursue our high hopes with renewed vigor. Matt Curtis of the Friends of Barton Springs Pool Polar Bear Plunge said, “This is an exciting opportunity to refresh your soul in the waters of Austin.” Refresh your soul. Perhaps that is the anchor we need in our lives in order to navigate the difficult times and to reach for our dreams.

Christmas Butterfly

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It’s called the Hill of Life. It’s an entry point to the Barton Creek Greenbelt in Austin. The Greenbelt is composed of miles of trails, limestone cliffs for climbing, swimming holes (when there’s enough water), and ‘greenery’ that follows Barton Creek as it winds through southwest Austin. The Hill trail descends 300 feet in less than half a mile on a limestone boulder and gravel path surrounded by Ashe Juniper trees. (One of their many common names is Brake Cedar!) The Hill of Life is judiciously called another name—‘The Hill of Death’—by some who use the hill for the challenge of training for running or biking.

It was Christmas Eve afternoon, so there were not many people on the trail. I was experiencing a mild case of season dysphoria after leaving snow and cold in Minnesota and then hiking in temperatures in the high seventies in Austin. I do not associate Christmas with sweating.

Going down was fairly easy—just watching our steps on the rocks. Once we got to the bottom of the cliff, we arrived at the clear, burbling Barton Creek. The water was warm enough for Chris to wade in (what?!) The trees in Texas are a funny combination of those that lose their leaves for ‘winter’ and those that keep them year-round, like the Live Oaks. The large Sycamore trees still had some lime-green to brown leaves clutching their branches, while others had fallen to the ground.

A creek-side tree had grown in a circle—an interesting, intriguing tree to look at, to focus on—but then being able to look through the hole to the creek, to the water, to the pebbles under the clear water.

Emily knew the way to another waterfall through an open prairie meadow punctuated with spikey green Yucca plants.

We could hear the waterfalls before seeing them, then walked to the pool beneath the falls where a ‘buddha’ stump sat calmly in the sparkling water. (I may have been the only one who thought it looked like a buddha.)

We wanted to walk out to the rocks by the falls, and from a distance we saw a bike-rider carrying his bike from the rocks to the bank. When we got to the crossing point, all I saw was a small log lodged between two trees. I turned to the biker and asked how he had walked that tightrope with a bike! He pointed to another log (maybe we should just call them branches) that was lodged in the trees above the ‘walking’ one. ” Hang on to that one,” he said. Ohh-kay, here goes…

Success! When standing on a bridge or on the ice or on a rock in the middle of a stream or river, it gives a person such a different perspective from standing on the bank. I feel like I am part of the river. I look upstream to the water’s ‘past’ where it has flowed around bends, pulled soil from the banks, and swept past sun-logged turtles and other creatures.

Then I look downstream to the water’s ‘future’—where it will flow in some of the same ways as its past. But there is always something new and different in its path.

Standing on the boulders that create the ‘falls’ and watching the water run and fall over the sides, doing what it is meant to do, brings me to the present moment—present, yet ever changing. And then this Northerner, on my long journey away from the cold and snow, sees a Christmas miracle…

…a butterfly perched on the same rock I’m standing on! A Christmas butterfly!

With some Christmas Eve meal preparation to be done, we decided to leave the river of life to climb back up the Hill of Life. It was a different story. I was thirsty, hot, sweating, tired, and in total understanding of the alternative name—and I was just walking! (We did see a handful of people running past us. I wanted to applaud them.)

The Hill of Life and The Hill of Death are the same hill. One and the same. The circular tree and the water beyond it are bound together in the same way. The river’s past and the river’s future are both part of the present water in which we stand. It is actually mind-boggling in its simplicity and its complexity. How we name it or look at it (or through it) or think about it depends on what we experience. Going down the hill, I could affirm the Hill of Life name from a smug point of view. Coming up changed my tune. Even if I was focusing on the life-affirming qualities of walking up that steep hill, I was still out-of-breath and tired. We cannot think away some realities. Some people are always walking up the hill.

I think our challenge is to make sure we walk both ways. We experience the sweaty climb and the downhill breeze. We experience the peacefulness of the still water buddha and the risk of the tightrope over the rushing water. We look closely at the tree and beyond at the river. We carry our past deliberately and lightly and look to the future with hope and excitement and relish our lives in this present moment. Simple and complex—just like a butterfly.

Windows of Time

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I’ve had these windows of time in my life when much more was happening beyond the physical, conscious, daily occurrences. When I was younger, I was completely oblivious to them beyond a faint acknowledgement of not feeling so great. It could be in the form of physical discomfort or uneasiness or of a mental or emotional fatigue or depression. After a close friend of mine died when we were in our early 30’s, I had this window of ‘off’ time every year in early February. It was only after a number of years of this happening that I realized my ‘off’ time was the anniversary of his death and his birth. My body and mind were mourning the loss of my dear friend without my conscious knowledge. I ‘knew’ the anniversary of his death and birthday—a window of time of only a few days apart—in essence, without ‘knowing.’ Therein lies the incredible, miraculous marvel of our human bodies, minds, and souls.

Once I realized this connection, it made those times easier to handle. Of course I feel sad and down—I miss my friend, I loved him, and he was a joy to all who met him. The whole earth was missing a great soul who left far too early. That’s how important we each are in the whole of creation. The end of April and the beginning of May is another of those windows of time for me. It marks the deaths of Chris’ Mom and Dad who died two years and five days apart. Since I was intimately familiar with the anniversary mourning time, I used it proactively to set aside that time to honor them. I put pictures of them on our mantel, we recounted stories of them, and I ‘shared’ with them about our family. As the years passed—for now it has remarkably been sixteen and eighteen years since their deaths—the mourning morphed into a window of time of gratitude and peace. I still miss them and love them and carry them with me.

It was during this window of time when Chris and I walked at a nearby park. Our daily walks are usually faster—no tarrying for picture taking—but I took the camera in anticipation of a spectacular blooming. Good thing I did. The curled leaves of the Bloodroot flowers had opened up into a fan-tourage of magnificent flower display.

But the spectacular blooming I had anticipated was that of the White Trout Lily. From green and brown mottled, tulip-like leaves grows one exquisitely formed, curved, nodding, white flower with protruding yellow stamens and prominent white pistil.

They begin as a pink-colored bud that opens during the day and closes at night. The blooms last for just a few days, making it all the more magical to see them flowering.

The floodplain of this lowland by the Mississippi River was a carpet of White Trout Lilies—millions of them by my inexpert estimate. These colonies can be hundreds of years old, as it takes one plant six to seven years before a flower is produced. These early-flowering carpets serve as ‘nutrient pools’ for the entire forest. Without them, the spring run-off would take the nutrients with them, but instead the Trout Lilies take up nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. By mid-summer the leaves die back and release those nutrients for the vibrant summer growth. They remain dormant, underground, until the next early Spring.

As the White Trout Lilies bloomed, sedge grasses and ferns pushed and unfurled from the damp soil—green is once again the dominant color!

A couple of Anemones bloom at this early Spring time in Minnesota, including False Rue Anemone with its prolific, branching white flowers that seem to dance in the breeze.

A Canadian Goose pair ate and strutted in the back water of the River and gave no bother to us as we walked by.

The feathers of the impressive gander rippled like the water in which he walked.

Farther on, another goose was dipping its black bill into the shallow water, but when it saw and heard us, it turned and swam away, honking in alarm for long past the time we were in sight.

Tiny blue violets bloomed along the trail in sharp contrast to the leaf litter beneath it.

And then I saw the turtles! A large, fat-necked turtle sprawled over a log in the River slough water, legs hanging over the sides to balance him for a sun-soaked nap. Heads were raised when they heard us, but their concern was not great enough to scramble from their perches into the water.

Beside the log turtle was another on a large rock below. Reflections multiplied the logs, rocks, and turtles as a single, red Maple flower floated by.

The next set of turtles on a log made me laugh out loud. Another fat-necked turtle had a smaller, flatter turtle as a ‘pillow’ for his rest time, and behind him, two colorful sentries guarded the rear with their watchful neck maneuvers.

Another turtle trio of different sizes piled on a log with their eyes and noses in the air. Such funny creatures!

And finally, towards the end of our slow, beautiful, enchanting, funny walk, I saw this tree stump in the slough water. Moss was growing around the circumference of the bark-stripped trunk. Old, tan grass remained from the past, while new green grass was beginning to grow. A stick was propped up against the stump like someone had left a walking stick for another. Ripples and shadows and floating plants surrounded the stump, and in the middle of the stump grew a small, newly-leafed out tree in the freshest, most vibrant green!

We are the vibrant trees growing from the ones who came before us. They are the exquisitely blooming flowers who become our ‘nutrient pools’ who nourish us in our growth. The windows of time, those anniversaries of death or trauma that are remembered in our bodies, encoded into our brains, and carved into our souls, are there for a purpose. We are supposed to remember in order to transform the grief and pain into something of substance and form, of beauty and peace, so we can recognize how important we each are in the whole of creation. Take up your walking stick, give thanks for those loving souls who came before us, don’t get bogged down by the petty, muddled world around us, and find joy in fleeting flowers and sun-bathing turtles.

Homecoming

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“Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering.”      —Charles Dickens

An old black pickup pulls into the driveway every weekday afternoon and parks in front of the garage.  An old black dog inside the house who’s waiting and watching by the floor-length window gets a shot of adrenaline in anticipation.  The homecoming has begun!  Chris exits the pickup, gathers his small red cooler and extraneous sweatshirts, boots, and clothes that are mud-streaked, oil-stained, and grass-smelling and walks slowly toward the house.  If he’s dug holes, planted trees, or been on his hands and knees pulling weeds for too many hours of the day, it shows in the limp of his gait.  But pure happiness and joy meets him at the door in a rush and a dozen rubs against his legs.  There is a smile on Chris’ face as he sits on the bench, looks at his gray-faced friend, and rubs behind her ears as she wags her tail in contentment.  The three of us then take a walk down the road—Chris and I check in with one another about our day as Tamba checks out the new smells on the old pathway.

It was Homecoming at Saint John’s University last weekend.  Aaron and his friends met to eat breakfast in the Reef—the cafeteria on the basement floor of the thick stone walled Quad building.  After a short walk across campus, they entered the pine tree enveloped football stadium where the Johnnies whomped the Auggies in a no-surprise win.  Tailgating, catching up, reminiscing, and sharing a beer and a game of pool rounded out the day.  Chris and I joined Aaron for a hike at Saint John’s the next day—it was a beautiful, sunshiny day, and the Maple trees were in spectacular color.  Families, students, and alumni hiked the extensive network of trails, reveling in the magnificence of the place.

What does a place one wants to come home to offer?  What brings people back ‘home?’  Saint John’s emphasizes a sense of community and friendship that I witnessed during Aaron’s four years there and that has continued in the years since he graduated.  It is a place where you can fall, and there are people there to help you back up.

Home is a place of beauty, however you define that.  Saint John’s University is surrounded with hundreds of acres of natural beauty—lakes, streams, Maple forests, grasslands, and Oak savannas—and contains historical and modern architecture that awes and inspires.

Coming home should be a safe haven in the rough seas of life.  The heart-breaking reality is that many children don’t have a safe haven at home; they consider school and their teacher a place and person of safety where they can have food, kind words, and care and help with learning and being.  We never know when we are someone’s port in a storm.

Home lets us be who we are with no pretenses, embraces us no matter our size, color, mistakes, or shortcomings.

Home is a place to hang out, to get close, to have a conversation, to hold one another accountable, to soak up the good things in life and to deal with the bad.

Home is a place of encouragement when a task is daunting, when we wonder how the heck we’re going to climb this next hurdle, when the steps are right in front of our faces but we are unable to navigate them for whatever reason.

Home is a place of growth and learning where books and experiments, chores and hands-on doing, creativity, mistakes and solving problems of every kind are used daily.  We learn, we grow, we shed our old ways and constantly become new creatures.

Home is a place that helps us out of the muck, that throws us a rope when we’re stuck, that will wade into the mess we find ourselves in, pull our boot out of the mud, and help us back to shore.

Home is where all the paths of life lead back to—often we lose our way and wander through the trees.  We get confused about what direction we’re going and whether it’s the right way.  We get scared of what’s to come because of the dark nights that have come before.  But always, the Light of home is calling us forward through the shadows.

 

For Aaron, homecoming at Saint John’s was fun and nostalgic, satisfying and bittersweet (Jake, you were missed!)  For Tamba, Chris’ daily homecoming is a time to celebrate with joy and contentment.  So what does a place or person offer that one wants to come home to?  Safety in all realms, acceptance of who we are, beauty for the eyes and soul, responsibility of internal and external dynamics, help when we need it, a culture of learning and growth, and fun, happiness, contentment, and joy!  Home is the place we return to, it is the people we can count on, it is the God who sustains us, it is the path we travel on the journey back to ourselves.  Home is truly where our hearts are, where we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we matter. 

Over the Edge in Love

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I remember the electricity I felt when I met Chris—could he be more handsome or sweet?  Gosh, he was a good dancer.  He talks kindly of his mother (important!)  He was humble, interested in this unusual prairie girl, and had a sense of humor I had never experienced that kept me on my toes.  I wanted more of him, even as he drove away down 400 miles of interstate highway.  What I didn’t know at the time was that I was falling over the edge in love for the first time in my life.  There were three other times when I stood, with Chris, on the precipice, staring into the face of a newborn child, and I was swept away, over the edge in love, for no rational reason—when you know you are either in the realm of crazy or the sacred realm of Spirit.

We traveled 400 miles of interstate highway last weekend to celebrate Chris’ brother and sister-in-law and their 50 years of marriage!  How does one go from falling over the edge in love to celebrating 50 years together?!  I was also fortunate to once again stare into the faces of my first- and second-born and feel the electricity of the all-consuming love parents have for their children, even when they are adults.  My spirit sang its song of joy.

The day before the anniversary party, we took to the trails like we had done so many times when the kids were little.  We explored Parkville Nature Sanctuary on a blue-sky, hot and humid day. (All relative when coming from Texas and Minnesota to Missouri!)

Most of the 115 acres of the Sanctuary and White Alloe Creek Conservation Area is forested, along with streams and wetlands.

We found some little treasures along the trail—bright red fungi and a wise old turtle.

But the main attraction of the Sanctuary was the waterfall.  Water cascaded and tumbled over rocks, bubbling with activity in places, then calmly pooling in others.

Downstream from the main falls was a bridge where a mom and her kids were watching a couple of Northern Water snakes in the swift current.  The female snakes are much larger than the males and both get darker with age.  Gestation is 3-5 months with a single litter of 30 live snakes in August to October!

The female climbed back up a small debris dam as the male washed down over more rocks and falls.

Nothing says ‘beware’ or ‘stay away’ like this tree.  Honey Locusts have frondy branches with small leaves that turn a brilliant yellow in the fall.  The spring flower is strongly scented, and the fruit is a flat pod, 6-8 inches in length, with an edible pulp that encases the seeds.  Honey Locusts are hardy, resilient, and fast-growing.

The trunk and branches, however, are covered in huge thorns that negate the positive qualities of these trees.  Luckily, cultivated thornless varieties have been established.

 

We all stand at the precipice, at the top of the falls, at some points in our lives.  The air is electric, and the water is urging us forward.  Things look pretty beautiful from our dopamine- and serotonin-saturated brains.  It’s easy to fall over the edge in love.  At first, falling over the edge is beautiful and effervescent and carefree—until we hit some rocks, and we lose our way.  Until we encounter snakes and things that scare us.  Until we are tangled up in a mess of thorns that we didn’t ‘see’ until it was too late.  So how do we avoid a false positive for happy-ever-after?  What gets us through those tough times?  What keeps us connected to the things that matter?

Sanctuary.  Walking stick.  Bridge.  Sanctuary is a sacred or holy place, a place of refuge.  It is for protection, peace, growth, faith, and hope—qualities that sustain us over a lifetime.  Walking sticks are used to more easily navigate a tough trail, to keep us safer, to help us out.  There are many times in the span of 35 or 50 years of marriage when we need something or somebody to help us get through the tough spots.  Bridges allow us to move from one side of something to the other side across a divide that may seem impassable.  Love is a bridge—the enduring, respectful, committed, treasure-filled type of Love when you know in your heart and soul that you are in the sacred realm of Spirit.

 

last photo by Chris

Transitions of Spring and Life

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One of the most poignant and difficult transitions in my life was moving from a household of five to gradually becoming a household of two again.  It was much more difficult than transitioning from two to five.  But it certainly followed the flow of Life, the reason for parenthood—to raise up offspring in loving care so they would become independent adults living their own lives.

Here in Central Minnesota, we are still in the Spring transition.  Signs of the old—winter dormancy and fall foliage—still are apparent even as the new green grows up around the old.  Most of the deciduous trees now have small, unfolding leaves, though still looking more bare than there.  The Wild Plum tree is white with blossoms, small pink flowers buds are scattered on the Apple trees, and the Daffodils are blooming in their fragrant, cheery yellow beauty.  Within a mile of our place are a number of small ponds and wetlands—some only hold water in the spring and dry up during the heat of summer.  Others are large enough or fed by springs and creeks that they are the habitat for many different animals all year round.  The first small pond had many cattails—old and new—and not much water.  But it was home to a solo-singing frog who was later joined by two other voices as I stood nearby taking pictures.

The next body of water I walked by was a small lake populated by waterfowl, turtles, and muskrats.  A pair of Canadian Geese swam together at the far side of the lake, dipping their heads into the shallow water, sometimes going bottoms-up in their search for food.

Like the bottoms-up goose, the Lily Pads uncurl by sticking up in the air before laying flat on the water’s surface.

A line-up of turtles were sunning themselves on a mud barge, happy for warmth after a winter of hibernating.

On the other side of the road from the lake was a small pond and wetlands where the new green grass was becoming dominant.

An old nest rested among the new leaves.

Pine-cone Willow galls, made last year, house pink, grubby larvae that pupate in the spring and hatch as adult gnats.  The old cone ‘houses’ and the new lime green flowers and leaves are the epitome of this Spring transition.

 

Transitions are always a little tough, whether going from Winter to Spring or Autumn to Winter, from health to sickness or injury to healing, from a busy, vibrant household to a quieter, calmer environment or from a carefree, me-and-you life to baby makes three or four or more.  With each transition of our lives, it’s good to take some time to appreciate the old way, to have gratitude for the things that served us well, and to learn from the difficulties that wrenched our hearts in sorrow or pain.  Perhaps that is why Spring is slow in its unfurling.  As the old way slips away, we make room for the new.  We are happy for the warmth.  We shed another layer of our childish ways to become more adult-like.  We build a new nest.  We join with other voices who know the song we’re singing.  With peace and renewed energy, we merge once again with the flow of Life.