For Things That Go Bump in the Night

Winter approaches with its chill breath. The harvest has been gathered, granaries and hay barns are full, and farm animals have been tucked into their barns for the long winter. Days are becoming shorter, and nights seem to last forever.

Native Americans call this the time of the Long Nights. Daylight is paler and more slanted, but these last October days have a translucent beauty of their very own. Foliage has already turned color, and the brisk winds of autumn are scouring the hills and sweeping away the fallen leaves. Animals of field and forest are filling their pantries and preparing their burrows for winter.  The air is spicy and carries the promise of cold days to come.

Halloween or “Samhain”, as the ancient Celts called it, means simply “summer's end”. According to the old Celtic two-fold division of the year, summer was the interval from Beltane (May 1) to Samhain (October 31), and winter the interval between Samhain and Beltane. This is (along with Beltane of course), is one of the most important days on the Wheel of the Year. The old Celtic year ends today, and a new one begins as the sun is setting.

To the ancient Celts, time was cyclical and their cross quarter observances represented pivotal cosmic points beyond time, intervals when the natural universal order dissolved back into primordial chaos before regenerating itself. Thus, Samhain or Halloween night is a magical night beyond the confines of time, and one may, if she or he possesses such gifts, be able to view other points in time using tarot cards, runes or tea leaves.
 
Two themes are intertwined, divining the future and honoring the departed members of one's tribe or clan. It was once believed that the hallowed dead returned to the land of the living on October 31 to feast with their clans and family members. The great burial mounds of Ireland (sidh mounds) were opened up and lighted by torches so that the departed could find their way home again. Extra places were set at family tables and chairs placed near the hearth, food and drink put out for those who had passed beyond the fields we know. Old stories tell of Irish heroes making daring raids on the Underworld as the gates of Faery stood open on this night, but both the living and dead had to return to their appointed realms and stations by cock-crow or sunrise.

This is the most magical night in the whole turning year, one full of  jack-o-lanterns, costumes, scarecrows, trick or treating, goblins, ghost stories, divination and scrying.  Wise to remember though that this is also a night of great power and one when the veil which separates our world from the spirit world is gossamer thin. . . Strange creatures are abroad on this night, and uncanny events may befall us if we are not both prudent and cautious.

As I dole out candy to little goblins on my threshold this evening, I shall be reflecting on the past year and tucking it gently away. I shall be entertaining good thoughts about the future too, remembering that death is a natural part of earthly existence and not be feared - whether it be physical, the end of a trend or pattern, emotional closure, or merely the settling of issues which need to be laid to rest. Life is a continuous cycle of death and rebirth, and Halloween (or Samhain) accepts and celebrates this magnificent never-ending cosmic cycle.

Blessing to you and yours on this day. May your jack-o-lanterns glow brightly this evening, and may there be many small guests on your threshold.  May your home be a place of warmth and light, and your hearth be protected from things which go bump in the night.

Happy Samhain and Happy Halloween, and Happy New Year too!

Under the Halloween Moon

 Sing a song of Halloween, jack-o-lanterns everywhere,
Bats and brooms and witches, flitting through the air.
Spirits and ghosties rising, by moon and crooked tree,
Brightest blessings are flying out to you from me.

Come one, come all!  It's the annual Witches Tea Party Under a Halloween Moon, hosted by the beautiful Frosted Petunia and moving merrily by broomstick, bicycle, horse and buggy or other conveyance from house to house this weekend.

There's a jack-o-lantern on the veranda, and a lovely fire going in the fireplace here, pots and pots of tea, vast urns of coffee and other fine potions.  The old oak banquet table holds glossy candied apples, tray upon tray of chocolates, plates of cunningly iced moon cookies and journey cakes. Bagpipes, fiddles and harps are being tuned as I write this, and the dancing is about to begin.

Join us by the fire and celebrate glorious technicolor October in all its vibrant hues, spice and fragrance.  Sing us a spell, weave us a spell or two, tell us your stories.  When you've warmed yourself by the fire, imbibed a few noggins, consumed a few journey cakes and danced a few jigs, other fine witchy tea parties await you this weekend.

Just Ducky in Early Twilight

  

Male and Female Mallard

Rideau River, October 27, 2011

Friday Ramble - Frost

Frost is another one of those words which seems to have been around forever, coming to us from close Middle and Old English forms meaning "freezing, becoming frozen or extreme cold". The present noun form is cognate with Old Saxon, High German and Norse words claiming the same ancestral roots.  Then there are the Proto Germanic frusta and Old High German vorst, both related to the old verb freosan meaning "to freeze". Somewhere back there are Old Saxon, Frisian and Dutch kindred, and at the root of it all, the PIE (Proto-Indo-European language) preus which seems to have described processes of both freezing and burning.

Recent studies predicate that PIE has been around since at least 3700 BCE, long before the common era, and probably much earlier than that. When I think about such things, I am wrapped anew in reverence for words and language and the commonalities of earthly existence right back to the beginning times.

There is a beautiful day rising out there beyond the windows, morning skies in multitudinous shades of lavender, purple and gold, the sun coming up behind the ash trees in the garden, geese winging overhead out to stubbly fields to feed. The air is filled with their songs and exuberance on this cold morning near the end of October.

There was a heavy frost here last night, and its lacy scraps can still be seen on the cobblestones and roof tiles of the village. Dauntless Virginia creeper vines in the hedgerows seem to be undeterred by the night's plummeting temperatures, but they're turning red, violet and burgundy, and they look as though their jaunty stance is darned hard work.

The leaves of the wild roses in our hedgerow were clad in frost this morning, each and every crystal clearly defined and sparkling like a gem in the early light. Blue sky, silver and platinum frost crystals, russet and gold rose leaves dancing in the wind - who says there is no color about in late autumn?  One has only to look, and the best time for looking is just as the sun is rising over the bare trees.

Poetry Thursday Poem - Some October

Some October, when the leaves turn gold, ask
me if I've done enough to deserve this life
I've been given. A pile of sorrows, yes, but joy
enough to unbalance the equation.

When the sky turns blue as the robes of heaven,
ask me if I've made a difference.
The road winds through the copper-colored woods;
no one sees around the bend.

Today, the wind poured out of Canada,
a river in flood, bringing down the brilliant leaves,
broken sticks and twigs, deserted nests.
Go where the current takes you.

Some twilight, when the clouds stream in from the west
like the breath of God, ask me again.

Barbara Crooker

Originally published in Borderlands:

The Texas Poetry Review

Wordless Wednesday - Fallen

Views From Here

 

Looking down to the beaver pond, only a few feet deep at this time of year...

Paddock, flock and the trail through the old orchard down to the pond...

Ewe and early morning nibbling...

Small and Hopeful Things

 

How do they do it, I wonder. . .  There is brilliant warming sunlight now and then, but October days are gray and chilly for the most part, and nights are cold.

The north wind sweeps through the village touching everything with its icy fingers, and yet roses continue to bloom and paint our garden with their delicately tinted complexions. The place feels like a monastery enclosure, even in late autumn.

October's roses are not (of course) as large or as fragrant as their summer sisters, but the small and hopeful forms are flawless in their own natural way, and they are potent reminders that there is wild and elemental grace in every season.

Mannas of Dew and Light

There are questions I ask myself on stained glass October mornings when the skies are clear.

Have there ever been trees as golden as these, as expressive in their flowing seasonal movement? Have there ever been skies as blue, any old where or any old time? Has there ever been another morning as perfect as this one in the story of the world?  Could I survive without the changing of the seasons one into another, over and over again?

We stand on the ridge among wind tossed drowsy trees, sending our own roots down into the good dark Lanark earth, arms like branches upraised in sheer dancing jubilation and our hands cupped to hold mannas of dew and light - a lovely word to be sure is jubilation.  One can see the sun through every persevering leaf in the overstory.

When we arrive home, I upload photo after photo and, wonder of wonders, I seem to have captured the wind in its own madcap choreography.

Dewy

Friday Ramble - Fleeting

The word comes to us through the Middle English flete and Old English flēot, both derivatives of flēotan, meaning to float.  In common usage, fleeting used to describe that which is momentary, which exists for a brief time and passes swiftly, often vanishing in the twinkling of an eye. Various synonyms for fleeting are some of my favorite words ever - cursory, ephemeral, evanescent, fugacious, fugitive, impermanent, meteoric, momentary, passing, transitory, vanishing, volatile, deciduous, diaphanous, elusive, ephemerous, ethereal, gossamer, temporal, transient, transitory, vanishing, vaporous, volatile.

Himself, Spencer and I went for a long walk in the Two Hundred Acre Wood a few days ago, and we made our slow meandering journey through dry windy sunlit woods that seemed to go on forever, across rocky slopes, through groves of whiskery trees, rustling drifts of golden leaves everywhere underfoot. The heavy winds of recent days have brought many of the leaves in our woods tumbling down, and the Two Hundred Acre Wood is a different place entirely than it was only a few weeks ago.

A hollow wind careens through the gorges scattering leaves, pebbles, acorns and pods in all directions.The great oaks on the brow of the western hill are almost the only entities in the woodland still bearing leaves, and the tamaracks nearby are turning lacy gold. Fields of goldenrod and milkweed have gone to seed, and their withered stalks stand watching our progress like armies of silent observers committing the season to wild memory. I take my trusty blackthorn walking stick along on our autumn rambles, and it makes a pleasant racket scuffling through the Old Wild Mother's fallen bounty.

On such afternoons, we lean against an old tree and bask in the light slanting through the bare woodland, and there is a clear sense that all is fragile and fleeting and precious. It seems like only yesterday that we were rejoicing in the filtered emerald light of springtime and contemplating our unruly rural garden. Now here we are in the autumn woods, seeing all around us the clear cold evidence that a deep northern winter is on its way.

The passage of the seasons is a potent reminder that we exist for only a brief time in the Great Round, here for but a handful of days, but lit from within as we go walking through this world. We blaze with life and spirit and throw off sparks, and perhaps that is not surprising given our origins. Life is a glorious fleeting thing, and autumn says that best.

Thursday Poem - Poetics

I look for the way
things will turn
out spiralling from a center,
the shape
things will take to come forth in

so that the birch tree white
touched black at branches
will stand out
wind-glittering
totally its apparent self:

I look for the forms
things want to come as

from what black wells of possibility,
how a thing will
unfold:

not the shape on paper -- though
that, too -- but the
uninterfering means on paper:

not so much looking for the shape
as being available
to any shape that may be
summoning itself
through me
from the self not mine but ours.

A.A. Ammons

Wordless Wednesday - Looking Through the Woods

Looking for Light

A print of this work by the early twentieth century Canadian artist Tom Thomson hangs in my living room, diagonally across from my favorite reading chair and the table where bookish materials, journal and pen, salt lamp and a bowl of stones reside under a good reading lamp.  The painting is there for a reason - I delight in looking at it, a powerful visual reminder of light, wildness and the radiant life which reside beyond the confines of village and city.

In life, Tom Thomson was a lover of light and wildness, and in critiques of his own work he often said "there is not enough light in it". That cannot be said here, for Thomson's rendering of the light over and around his unknown river is flawless, and the image is a wild prayer of the highest order.

Looking at the painting, we find ourselves right on the bank of a smoky autumn river, viewing it through a lattice of majestic evergreens standing in solitary splendor against  water, earth and sky, a framework of arched silhouettes and spiraling traceries. The master's tree forms are rendered as simple shapes against natural light which moves and flows around them in differing intensities.

Does the image remind me of the beaver pond I wrote about a few days ago?  It certainly does, and especially at this time of the year when the light of the world is falling away, at least in the northern hemisphere.  What may be said of my life? Occasionally I find myself thinking as Tom Thomson did in his own brief and shining time, that "there is not enough light in it".  Like him, but with considerably less craftsmanship, I am always pursuing light with brush and lens and a net of words - sometimes finding it and just standing there like a wide eyed breathless fool by pond or fen or northern river.

Golden, Birch and Blue

The Farther Shore

The beaver pond is still and smooth, the gnarled cedars along the farther shore nebulous and cloaked in drifting fog that swirls as though stirred by a vast, benign and blessing hand.

Earth and water are warmer than the air this morning, and the serendipity coming together of the three elements spins a pearly veil over everything in sight. Sunlight or autumn rain - either will disperse the fog, but there is rain in the cards for this day, and most likely it will be rain that lifts the veil.

In what seems like only a few breaths, the countryside has morphed into its early winter configuration, trees bare and somewhat mournful on their slopes, fallen leaves ankle deep in the woods and stark windblown fields arrayed in grey and taupe. The hawthorn by the pond has lost its leaves entirely and wears only a few frost touched berries.

Just out of sight is the artist in her wellies and oilskins, carrying (as usual) cameras, lenses and filters, brush, pen and field notebook. Entranced as she is by the magical ambiance at this early hour, she is thinking that it would be even more so with a single beam of sunlight coming through the trees beyond the pond and shining through the fog to generate voluminous shadows in three fey dimensions.

She was a feeling a little lost when she got here, and in truth, she is still feeling lost, but paradoxically, she is also home.

Golden Leaf and Lichen

Friday Ramble - Shelter

Shelter is a word dear to a cronish heart in these autumn days when cold winds blow, and winter is peering over the hill. Daylight arrives later and later at this time of the year, and one can become insular, retreating to books, tea and a chair by the hearth, pulling draperies closed and trying to tune out the world beyond the windows. I find myself turning inward and dwelling on the tiny flame at the heart of things that promises warmth, sunlight and longer days somewhere up the trail, if one can only hang on.  These are only October's middling pages, so there is a long long way to go.

The etymology of shelter is obscure, but the word has been with us since the late sixteenth century, finding its origins perhaps in the much earlier Old English scieldtruma: scield meaning shield + truma meaning a unit of fighting men or warriors. Synonyms include: aerie, anchorage, apartment, asylum, cave, cove, cover, covert, crib, defense, den, digs, dwelling, guard, guardian, harbor, haven, hermitage, hide, hideaway, hideout, hole in the wall, home, house, housing, hut, lodge, lodging, nest, oasis, port, preserve, protector, quarters, rack, refuge, retirement, retreat, roof, roost, safety, sanctuary, screen, security, shack, shade, shadow, shed, shield, tent, tower, turf, umbrella.

By modern definition, a shelter is a structure of some sort, a cabin or a cave, an embracing tree or thicket, a harbor shielded by guardian hills and out of the sea wind.   Notions of rest, hibernation and sanctuary are central to all such creations - the poet priest Gerard Manley Hopkins described the fundamentals of shelter perfectly in Heaven/Haven:

I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.
And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.

All sentient creatures have their shelters and sanctuaries, and the trappings are highly personal, enfolding that which affords nurture and protection to a particular living thing. For deer and wild turkeys, it is the protection and nourishment afforded by woodland cedar groves in winter; for the great bears their snug leaf-lined caves; for rabbits, it is the overhanging branches of tall old spruces shielding them from icy temperatures and hungry predators.  For me, it is (for the most part) my hearth, a mug of tea and a comfortable chair out of the elements.

For the residents of the Battle River Bison farm in the Lanark Highlands, shelter seems to be a movable feast, and they create their own wherever they happen to be, bracing themselves, lowering their lavishly maned heads into rain or snow or wind and standing fast. When bison move together as a herd, they move with assurance, facing directly into the elements rather than turning away as domestic cattle do (wild and woolly Highland cattle being the exception perhaps).

I could learn a thing or three from the highland bison, and I shall be working on that this coming winter, hanging out by the fence and watching the great creatures breathe in and out in the icy wind, facing into the elements myself and trying to stand firm and mindful. There will (of course) be myriad layers of warm clothing, a camera and a bag of lenses in the equation.

Thursday Poem - Storytelling

Come in out of the darkness.
Come in where the fire casts shadows of longing.
Sit near each other. Hold hands

while I tell you a story that has never been told,
a story with music, a flute and singing, a drum and dancing,
a story of life’s circle and the hungry wolves

waiting for caribou, and the caribou lingering
over a feast of lichen, and ravens poised in the trees
at the edges of the wolves’ eyes,

a story with a grandmother spider
stealing a piece of the sun,
a story with medicine plants and sacred weeds,

a story of how men and women found each other,
of how coyote got his cunning, of arrow boy,
of the owl’s beak tapping, always the owl, the death bird,

and the mouse, timorous, scuttling into its den,
a story of you, and you, and you.
What does it mean this dream fruit?

Nothing more than to peel and eat
the sweet juicy flesh, to let its seeds
become part of your spirit.

Long after I am gone
you will remember a story that never happened
how things that never were came into being.

Dolores Stewart
from Doors to the Universe

Dolores Stewart Riccio's beautiful poem is about the ancient and timeless art of storytelling around the communal hearth as the year wanes, and I always enjoy reading it in this time and season.  In the words of one of my favorite aboriginal sayings, "The world is full of stories, and from time to time they permit themselves to be told..."

The Hunter's Moon of October

October gifts us with the first cold moon of the season - Lady Moon is often veiled in drifting clouds for several days and nights at a time, for this is a stormy time in the north. That she is a rather spooky moon is perhaps not surprising, given that Samhain (or Halloween) is little more than two weeks away. 

The last day of October signified summer's end for the ancient Celts.  As Himself, Spencer and I shivered in the garden last evening, there were no two ways about it - summer is over and  autumn is well and truly in residence. Oh, there are splendid sunny days now and then, but nights are chilly, and the wind has icy fingers after dark.

In a few weeks, the deer hunting season will begin, and so October's glorious moon is traditionally known here as the "Hunter's Moon".  That is what my Algonquin ancestresses called it, and so it has always been.  This month's full moon is no brighter than the other full moons in a calendar year, but it always seems so because of the position of the ecliptic in the sky in late autumn.

As a lover of moon lore, I find it interesting that Lady Moon is a prominent motif in Halloween stories and decorations, and I am always on the lookout for new examples. Witches on broomsticks, bats, dancing skeletons, jack-o'-lanterns, ghosts, spectral owls and crooked trees - they all make their appearances silhouetted against ghostly full moons and vast inky skies. In truth, Lady Moon will be in her eleventh cycle of the year and almost at First Quarter when Halloween arrives this year - she will have risen from her fruitful darkness and be waxing bright once again in the great cauldron of night. 

The leafless tree in this photo seems to be holding the moon in its arms, and I feel a little sad - it (the tree) expired earlier this year and will be felled in a few weeks' time.   How many moons I have seen rising through my old friend and photographed, fully leafed out in spring and summer, attired in crimson creeper leaves and vines in autumn, stark and leafless in winter.

We also know this moon as the: Acorns Cached Moon, Banksia Moon, Big Chestnut Moon, Big Wind Moon, Blackberry Moon, Blood Moon, Chrysanthemum Moon, Corn Ripening Moon, Drying Grass Moon, Falling Leaves Moon, Frosty Moon, Hallows Moon, Ivy Moon, Joins Both Sides Moon, Kantlos Moon, Kindly Moon, Leaf Falling Moon, Leaf Dance Moon, Leaves Change Color Moon, Maple Moon, Michaelmas Daisy Moon, Middle-finger Moon, Moon When Birds Fly South, Moon of Poverty, Moon When Geese Leave, Moon of Changing Seasons, Moon of Harvesting, Moon When Deer Rut, Moon of Acorn Gathering, Moon When Corn Is Taken In, Moon of Falling Leaves, Moon That Turns the Leaves White, Moon of First Frost, Moon When They Store Food in Caches, Moon of Long Hair, Moon When Quilling and Beading Are Done, Moon When the Water Begins to Freeze on the Edge of Streams, Nut Moon, Pekelanew Moon, Raking Moon, Samhain Moon, Shedding Moon, Small Trees Freeze Moon , Song Moon, Striped Gopher Looks Back Moon, Strong Moon, Ten Colds Moon, Travel in Canoes Moon, Trees Felled by Fire at Butt Moon, Trout Moon, Turkey Moon, Vintage Moon, White Frost on Grass & Ground Moon, Wild Turkeys Moon, Wilted Moon, Wine Moon, Winter Coming Moon

I am very fond of "Kindly Moon" and "Leaf Dance Moon".

In the Company of Herons

It was probably the last sighting of the season and a rare treat too - I had not seen a heron in several days and had come to the melancholy conclusion that they were gone until springtime rolls around again.

This "Great Blue" (Ardea herodias) was standing on a rocky ledge near the edge of the falls in Almonte yesterday, and he or she was utterly concealed by the towering rocks of the gorge - could not be seen from anywhere on the shoreline.

It was only when I reached the railing of the balcony at the power station and looked down over the edge that I could see the ardent fisherman standing there patiently in the deep shade of twilight.  Not the best of circumstances for photography by any means, but the heron was simply magnificent, and I had to try.  

The frothy white "stuff" in the background here is the thundering waterfall itself.  The roar of the water was almost deafening, but somehow or other, the moment was one of the most serene and uplifting in weeks, and I could have stood there with the great bird for hours.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada, and a very happy observance to everyone celebrating harvest and community around the family hearth and table.  Thanksgiving, however, should be every day and not just one in the turning year.  Have a good one!

Blue and Red and Orange

A puckish wind shakes the maple leaves loose, and sets them fluttering through the air and across the ridge like birds, brilliantly blue skies forming a vibrant background to such seasonal undertakings. 

The forest floor is already deep in fallen leaves, and they rustle underfoot like taffeta on our walks - leaves still on the trees tug at their moorings like tall ships made ready for journeys to faraway places and eager to be away on the very next tide.

There is color, sound and enticing fragrance everywhere: blue of sky, red and orange of the eaves, red squirrels chattering high in the overstory, the dry somewhat spicy perfume of native herbals going to seed and spreading their genetic wealth around for next year.

After several lovely cool and typically October days, it is going to be HOT here today - we are about to set a record for October in fact. Back into the cedar chest go our sweaters and out come our t-shirts, but only for a few days.  Temperatures will drop some time later this week, and we will be back to woollies and gloves.

Listening

Friday Ramble - Stillness

Ah, sweet stillness... it's an old word dating from before 900CE, and it comes to us through the Middle English stilnesse and the Old English stilnes, both describing a state in which one is quiet, peaceful, balanced and motionless.

It's difficult not to think about stillness at a time when our wild cousins are either migrating south and away from the coming winter, or falling asleep until springtime rolls around again. Birds like geese, loons and the great herons fly south; bears, frogs, hedgerows and old trees all hibernate and dream their way through the long white season.

Implicit in the word stillness are notions of tranquility, rest, quiet and freedom from turmoil and commotion, community and connection, a gentle inclusive flowing that takes in our own befuddled human selves and the whole vast glorious turning cosmos around us.

In "The Zen of Creativity", John Daido Loori writes that every creature on the face of the earth seems to know how to be quiet and still, but that humans are constantly on the go and seem to have lost the ability to "be quiet, to simply be present in the stillness that is the basis of our existence."

The mundane world is one (by and large) of noise, haste, restless acquisition and thoughtlessness, and we need quiet and rest in season. We need whatever real stillness we can find if we are to complete this earthly journey, well and mindfully and fruitfully.

This place is really all about stillness. In my early morning wanderings and wonderings with Spencer and camera, these unstructured verbal meanderings at sunrise and bad photos are my fumbling efforts to be truly still and present in the moment, connected and part of the world I am standing in.  I am already there if I only had the wits to realize it, but being a somewhat forgetful old hen, I need all the reminders I can rest my hands and my eyes on.

Geri Larkin called the process "stumbling toward enlightenment" and that is just what it is - a slow (occasionally ecstatic) lurching along a pitted winding trail toward a luminous state of being which evades wordy description and feels like home.

Sometimes that luminous something shows itself to us for a moment through the trees or as a dancing presence between one raindrop and the next. When that happens, the feeling and the memory stay with us. It is astonishing how many of these many moments (for me anyway) are about rainy days and autumn's falling leaves. Call it kensho or momentary enlightenment - it's magic at work. It's being in tune and part of this beautiful breathing world; it's clouds and quiet waters and bare October hillsides strewn with rainbow colored leaves; it's a whole McIntosh apple, freshly picked, all shined up, rosy and fragrant and dappled with dew.

Thursday Poem - The Moment

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

Margaret Atwood

(from Morning in the Burned House)

Wordless Wednesday - Held

Going for the Gold

At this time of the year, our highlands are ablaze with scarlet, russet and gold, and no doubt about it, the sizzling October reds are radiant and sensuous, but there are vibrant golds and russets in riotous profusion here too.  Every year, earthier hues are eclipsed by the flamboyant red maples and their persistent public relations machinery, and as much as I love the dazzling reds, it always seems to me that the equally glorious golds, oranges and ochres don't get the attention they so richly deserve. In northern autumn, the oro (gold) on display is anything but pallido (pale or light).

Hickories, beeches, ashes, sugar maples and birches turn rich saffron as do the leaves of a favorite gingko tree in the village.  Oak leaves turn a fetching rosy rust shade.  The poplars and larches (or tamaracks) by our beaver pond go bright yellow; goldenrod and late blooming dandelions are brilliantly canary colored until they go to seed and start blowing about in the chilly wind.

In autumn, Yellow-Orange Agaric (Amanita muscaria) glows like a hundred watt light bulb in the woods, and one sees it among the dead leaves as it can be seen at no other time of the year.  A few days ago, I could see the lovely but poisonous mushroom clearly from a distance of several hundred feet away - there it was in the shadows, dishing out its light like a halogen lantern on high beam. 

After days spent rhapsodizing about the reds, this one is for the glorious golds.

Resting Easy

Gifts Upon the Shore

The cottages along the lake have all been closed up for the year, the blithe residents headed back to work and school in far flung places, and the place is quiet this weekend.  Small flocks of geese and ducks remain, but the herons and bitterns are gone, and the Great Northern Loon (Gavia immer) has departed for its winter home on the Gulf of Mexico - I heard loons calling goodbye as they flew overhead a few days ago.  In early October, the lake is as glossy and dark as any remote Scottish highland tarn, and it seems resigned and serene.

There are no wood fires burning in the cottages this weekend, but I breathe in the fine remembered fragrance of earlier woodsmoke, old stone, driftwood on the shore and wild things gone to seed, and I feel summer's warmth on my skin again.  Revisiting memories is a splendid thing at this time of the year. 

For some reason my mind persists in revisiting summer sounds, sights and scents in October: the call of the aforementioned loons in early morning, children on the beaches, canoe paddles dipping slowly into water, great herons fishing in the shallows, flocks of mergansers in flight.

Here we are again, all wrapped up in some of the most magnificent sunsets anywhere. Standing on the shoreline last evening with my collar turned up against the wind, hands in my pockets and Spencer leaning against me, I knew in my blood and bones that I simply could not be anywhere else, for these highlands feed me.  As long as I can journey into this wild place now and then, I can cope with anything that comes my way.

Happy October