Wednesday - Not Quite Wordless

Rainy Day

Rain on the window forms draperies of its own; the garden and old trees are barely visible beyond the glass and precipitation and mist.

This is a good day for reorganizing art and stationery cupboards and reordering the multitudinous folders on this computer system, for drinking pots and pots of tea, reading, sketching and rocking gently along in time with the Scarlatti sonatas (Pletnev's recording), Hildegarde of Bingen and the Mediaeval Baebes too.  Tucked somewhere in the midst of such lovely pursuits are a batch of molasses cookies, scones and at least one loaf of gluten free bread.

A day like this is no' a bad thing.

Surprise, surprise...

Indigo Bunting

(Passerina cyanea)

Surprise, surprise.... While looking around the eastern hill on Friday morning, there was a flash of iridescent blue in the prickly ash thicket, and a single brilliant male Indigo bunting flew up into a nearby tree. The behaviours of this handsome fellow and his dainty brown lady love were agitated, and they were clearly nesting behaviours - I shot a mere three frames then retreated to the other side of the hill to let them get on with their nest construction.

The second surprise of the week was not so fortunate. I succumbed to a weak spell on Saturday afternoon and fell backward into the old oak desk here in the study, concussing myself royally and bruising my lower back. There was an audible "crack" as my elderly sconce connected with the solid wooden desk surface and then the floor - I don't remember anything of the few minutes before and after. A doozy of a headache lingers, I list slightly to port, and my doctor says there is to be no outdoor rambling for this old hen for a few days. Barges of patience will be required...

Thursday Poem - Questions Before Dark

Day ends, and before sleep
when the sky dies down, consider
your altered state: has this day
changed you? Are the corners
sharper or rounded off? Did you
live with death? Make decisions
that quieted? Find one clear word
that fit? At the sun's midpoint
did you notice a pitch of absence,
bewilderment that invites
the possible? What did you learn
from things you dropped and picked up
and dropped again? Did you set a straw
parallel to the river, let the flow
carry you downstream?

Jeanne Lohmann

Wordless Wednesday - Repose

Rose and Raindrops

English Rose (Abraham Darby)

Of Herons and Summer Waters

The Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)

Dalhousie Lake, June 2010

She is standing among the rocks near the Geddes bridge, where our own Mississippi river enters Dalhousie Lake after its tumultuous journey down the gorge from the High Falls power station. The water is too deep here for heron fishing, but there are shallow pools of water between the boulders, here and there a choice morsel of minnow, a frog or a fingerling moving about in lazy circles. The rocks give flickering shelter from the intense sunlight; the river's headlong journey under the bridge and out into the lake is almost trance inducing in its hypnotic rhythm.

Bedrich Smetana's symphonic Moldau (Vitava) comes to mind - the Czech composer gave his river a theme of its very own, a rippling leitmotif which emerges again and again from other elements of the score: the river's beginnings, its passage through forest and farmland, its triumphant sweep through Prague, and its joyful song of homecoming as it joins the Elbe. There are scenes of life along the riverside and snippets of Czech folklore: hunting horns in the forest and village wedding celebrations, visions of moonlight dancing on the river, a nocturnal dance of Rusalkas, the haunting water-nymphs of Slavic folklore who enticed mortals to their watery doom. OK, mine is a just little river, but oh, how she sings in summer....

I have been wondering if this summer of 2010 might not turn out to be "the summer of the heron". Herons and bitterns have been turning up in all sorts of places this year: in flight above the Clyde and Mississippi rivers, on our favorite lake in the highlands (above), on a friend's artfully reed fringed pond, standing majestically in a favorite fen at twilight - the great birds are often in my dreams too.

If there is a deity of these northern wetlands, it is heron with her golden eyes, her focus as fierce and intent as any lens, however powerful. Watching, it seems to me that in heron's gimlet gaze is a bone deep knowing of this rich, ecologically diverse and fundamentally wild commonwealth I call home.  Long after my molecules have dispersed back into the cosmic sea, I shall probably be here in spirit.  In some as yet unknown measure, I shall be here and rambling about (or flying) in this place, for I could be nowhere else.

Had I but a fragment of heron's patience and focus and dignity, I would be a happy camper indeed. Lacking those qualities, I am merely her ardent devotee.

Thursday Poem - This

This is what was bequeathed us:
This earth the beloved left
And, leaving,
Left to us.

No other world
But this one:
Willows and the river
And the factory
With its black smokestacks.

No other shore, only this bank
On which the living gather.

No meaning but what we find here.
No purpose but what we make.

That, and the beloved's clear instructions:
Turn me into song; sing me awake.

Gregory Orr

Wordless Wednesday - Learning Deep Water

First Faery Rose

I captured this frame a few minutes after yesterday's refreshing afternoon rain, a once miniature Kordana rose in the garden which has taken off in all directions since being planted outdoors and tended with loving attention.

Rose can no longer be called a miniature because of her newfound robust stature, but for all that, she is still a faery rose, a fey and magical creature of great beauty, particularly when blooming. Her exuberance and her delight in garden life know no bounds, and this year, she is just covered with buds.

When the rose came to me in the heart of winter, she was a mere sprite, a potted creature with tiny leaves and bearing blooms hardly bigger than my thumb. Residing In the garden behind the little blue house in the village now, she spreads her arms toward the sky. She flowers all season with utter abandon, offering bloom after bud of intoxicating hue and texture.

Water Blooming

I am always looking for the perfect water lily and water lily leaves in this wild pond in the Lanark Highlands, looking also for little green snakes and frogs reclining on the leaves in the sunshine, for rainbow winged dragonflies floating on the smooth dark reflecting waters.

Sometimes, a beaver swims by, or a muskrat perches on the far shoreline and peers at the blundering human on the verges of her home. Once, a visiting otter climbed on a nearby rock and regarded me with curiosity for several minutes before dismounting and swimming off toward a nearby connecting river - it yawned occasionally showing the bright red interior of its mouth and a wickedly sharp set of teeth. There is always something going on here.

Water lilies (of course) are home to many varieties of pond insect life as are their leaves, and the tiny residents make their way into every image taken. The odd perfect silvery and unattended leaf floating on the pond notwithstanding, every festooned and nibbled leaf is perfect just as it is. Little green snakes, frogs and dragonflies are wonderful, but bees, beetles, thrips and leafcutter insects are free adornments too - they are icing on the wild cake.

I need a new set of chest high rubber waders to get a little closer to them all.

All Grown Up...

Bonhomme (Beau) is a few months short of three years old now, and he grew into a handsome lad of innate nobility, about seventeen hands tall. The intelligence and gentle nature he displayed as a colt remain today and so does his curiosity about everything that happens beyond the paddock gate.

His eyes are bright, he is an excellent listener, and he still has the softest and most expressive nose on the planet - spending time with him is always therapeutic. I could spend hours draped over the fence patting that velvet nose, and there are days when I do just that.

Beaded

Wordless Wednesday - Evening's Rainbow

By the River

A favorite sitting place, and a wondrous moment in a shining season, although I am passionate about every season in the highlands.

The Clyde river is a jewel in summer stillness, a shining strand in Indra's web. A light wind stirs the trees and makes shimmering ripples on the water, making the reflected image of the old granary sway and dance. At twilight, ducks panhandle for bread on the beach, and herons wade in the shallows nearby. A lone beaver goes swimming up and down, giving some thought to trying another dam on the river.

The crone sits by the water and snaps a few photos of a place she loves, her thoughts as slow and honeyed as the winding summer river. She thinks that as often as she comes to this place and sits for a while, watching the play of light across the water and trying to capture the moment in her camera, the loveliest part of the equation is what the river says, "Just be in this moment, nothing else is needed at all.."

As she turns to go, she thinks that in some measure she will be here by the river forever.

Monet in the North Woods

Not looking for clarity or definition or perfect ambient light, but something softer, more nebulous and serene...

I craved this Monet moment in the north woods: the flowing shapes, untroubled waters and gentle reflections of an early June evening—I craved stillness and a quiet interval spent sitting by the beaver pond.

There were no little green frogs or snakes resting on the lily pads this past weekend, but there was a chorus of horn throated bullfrogs somewhere in the tall reeds, and they were engaged in a resonant (and at times spirited) descant, sounding for all the world like a choir of chanting Tibetan monks.

Not in My Name

What can I say, and where do we go from here anyway?  This is beyond heartbreaking and horrifying, and I am furious.  

Gaia grievously wounded and reeling from the blows which have been dealt her, so much destruction, so many lives and livelihoods lost for greed and profit.  BP's words not withstanding, the Gulf situation cannot just be fixed, and we cannot believe a word that comes out of the collective mouths of the oil company.

Heron on the Lake

Great Blue Heron
(Ardea herodias)

This is another one of those years when I stand on the shore of the lake and snap image after fuzzy image of herons. Day after day, I haunt shorelines and shallows and ponds and estuaries with camera in hand. I am seldom (if ever) even slightly satisfied with the images of them I upload here, but my love of the great blue birds goes on and on.

Standing by the water a day or two ago, I remembered a dear departed friend and sister who loved these magnificent wild birds as much as I do. I shared every single photo with her, fuzzy or not, and she loved them all. I know that Aloha still loves herons - this week I could feel her smiling on the beach beside me.

Sometimes, I feel like the elderly Buddhist monk who was asked to describe his life (or journey) and exclaimed, "Just one mistake after another...." Then he laughed.

Thursday Poem - Generation

Our stories lie down in the orchard,

their time is not now, but something is

coming, something is going away. They

rise to the stars, and wait to be told.

There are listeners who know how little

we know, how much we are feeling.

We had to go our own way, a little off course,

always, no matter how specific the directions

seemed at the time. In this universe if we’re lucky,

we will live in our children’s stories,

their tales that will turn us to legend,

some absurd truth that has nothing to do

with our plans, our meticulous records.

No matter what stories we discard or keep,

they will give us a life we cannot imagine. 

Jeanne Lohmann

Wordless Wednesday - Swallowtail

Canadian Tiger Swallowtail
(Papilio canadensis)

May 30, 2010

Helping Mama Home

This snapper mother was, I think, the last one we will be helping across the road this season, and in many ways, she is the one I am most proud of assisting this year.

The turtle had already finished laying her eggs when we encountered her on the road Sunday afternoon near the eastern edge of the Two Hundred Acre Wood. She was trying to return home, but was too exhausted to make it across the road, had simply collapsed on the median and was lying there, trying to find the strength to continue her crossing as traffic whizzed by her in both directions. She was alert but quiet, and one could see in her old eyes that she was resigned to what was going to be a gruesome ending to her life. We pulled over immediately, knowing that something had to be done quickly, or our snapper was going to be run over by a speeding vehicle.

As we climbed out of the car with our stout turtle stick, a truck traveling in the other direction stopped by the side of the road, and the driver hopped out carrying a fluorescent orange vest - he volunteered to help us move the weary turtle to safety. While our new friend directed traffic going in both directions, we prodded mama gently onto a towel and towed her over to the grassy verges by the beaver pond. She was too tired to react in any way at all, and she complied with nary a hiss or a snap, simply relaxing in the long grass when the move was over and breathing deeply.

I am probably "reaching for it" when I say that mama seemed thankful for our assistance, but I was glad we had been there when she needed us. Our snapper is a neighbor of sorts, and I really do love these magnificent reptiles.

OK, I am a little weird, but you already knew that...