The Music of a Summer Night

I lean against the railing on the deck with an iced coffee in hand and watch fireflies frolicking through the shrubbery in the garden.

Midsummer has passed, and Lammas is only a few days away, but I am thinking of a watercolour (1908) by Robert Edward Hughes called Midsummer Eve. Hughes was acquainted with members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and their influence on his work shows. In his painting, a young woman stands in a forest clearing surrounded by a ring of fairies who are holding softly glowing lanterns. It is night, and the woods behind her are alight with fireflies. There is magic in the air.

In our darkened garden, there are the last cicada raspings of the day and a few crickets are doing their thing. Classical guitar (Rodrigo) wafts from the speakers on my neighbor's veranda, and a hound around the corner is singing soulfully to the waxing moon. A light wind blows through the old trees, and there is an occasional crackle from the lantern burning on the deck. By rights, a Pan flute or a harp should be playing too. Perhaps something by the Breton harper, Alain Stivell?

On nights like this, I feel ancient and young at the same time, and I know beyond a doubt that there is a wild, elemental magic at work in the great wide world. I can almost reach out and touch it, and that is comforting.

Friday Ramble - Little Singers in the Trees

An annual cicada's song is the quintessential music of August, a sonorous vocal offering from little jeweled beings who emerge from the ground, shed their nymph skins, climb high into the light-filled trees and sing for a handful of days before expiring and returning to earth. It's a joyful, ecstatic and poignant element in the slow, irrevocable turning of one northern season into another.

Only male cicadas sing, but oh how they do, vibrating the complex abdominal membranes called tymbals over and over again to generate a raspy tune that will attract a mate. I have much to learn about identifying cicadas, but I think this one is the bigger Linne's cicada, rather than a Dog-day cicada. Whichever one it was, my little visitor was absolutely gorgeous. 

In ancient Greece and Rome, the cicada symbolized resurrection, immortality, and  spiritual ecstasy. The Greeks associated it with the sun god (Apollo), and with Dionysian rituals of ecstasy and madness. For the Romans, its emergence from the earth was a powerful symbol of transformation and rebirth.

In some Hispanic cultures, particularly those with strong Mesoamerican traditions, the cicada is associated with life, death and metamorphosis. It represents resilience, defiance, enduring hardship and surviving against the odds.  

In the southern French province of Provence, the cicada is viewed affectionately as a kindred spirit, a creature that loves the sun and makes music for the sheer joy of it. It is considered a lucky charm, and it is a popular motif in local art and crafts. 

We (Beau and I) often find abandoned cicada shells on trees at this time of the year but always feel fortunate when we encounter a newborn in all its pastel green splendor, sometimes still clinging to its discarded exoskeleton. Imagos (adults) darken as their new skins harden and their wings expand, but there is some variation in coloration, and many will retain greenish wings all the days of their lives.

For the last few days, we have been rescuing cicadas from sidewalks, driveways and roadways and moving them to safe perches where they will not be trampled by pedestrians or moving cars. On early walks, Beau and I always encounter at least two or three before we arrive home again. Evenings, I take my mug of tea out to the garden and listen to cicada serenades before the sun goes down, and I shall be sad when I go outside one night, and there are no cicada songs to be heard.

Call it "cicada mind" and cherish the notion. Our task is one of cultivating just this kind of patience, acceptance, rapt attention and unfettered Zen sensibility, of embracing our allotted days fully and singing wherever we happen to be, then dissolving effortlessly back into the fabric of the world when the time comes.

Wordless Wednesday - The Music of a May Morning

Friday Ramble - The Music of What Happens

Around the corner, three song sparrows were trilling their hearts out from a rooftop. Their pleasure in the day and the season was echoed by a construction worker a few doors away belting out Doug Seeger's “Going Down to the River” as he installed drywall in the old house on the corner. The door of the place was wide open, and his rendering of the gospel classic was off key, but it was soulful and fine stuff indeed.

Listening to the sparrows and the guy doing the drywall, I found myself thinking of the mythic Irish hero, Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool). He thought the finest music in the world was not the belling of stags, the baying of hounds, birds singing in the overstory or the sound of happy laughter, but "the music of what happens". 

This morning, the crows left an offering in the birdbath, a tiny, dead field mouse with its entrails spilled out and floating forlornly around in limp spaghetti-ish circles, not really the way one likes to start the day. Downcast, I went back to the deck and held my nose resolutely over the mug of Italian dark roast waiting for me there. Later I donned rubber gloves, gave the wee mouse back to the earth, scrubbed out the birdbath and refilled it with clean water. The crows will probably return with new booty tomorrow, and we will commence clean up operations all over again.

Tulips in every shade of the rainbow are starting to bloom, but it is the reds that dazzle - the blooms are almost incandescent in the early sunlight, so bright they hurt one's eyes. Daffodils and scarlet fringed narcissus nod here and there, and violets sprinkle the garden. Magnolia trees in the village are flowering and their perfume lingers everywhere. Wonder of wonders, the first few bumble girls of the season have appeared, just in time to partake of the crabapples that are starting to flower. When Lady Spring finally shows up here, she hits the ground running.

What an amazing trip this season is, what wonders there are to feast one's eyes on; trees leafing out, wildflowers popping up everywhere, feeders in the garden full of songbirds. If I were to stop and take photos of every splendid thing we (Beau and I) see on our morning walks (and everything is splendid at this time of the year), we might not get home again for weeks.

Rain is in the cards for today, and that is quite all right. We need wet stuff, and by that I do NOT mean snow or hail. Collection barrels have already been dragged out of the garden shed and installed under downspouts. Wind chimes have been taken out of storage and hung in the crabapple tree. My new hummingbird feeder will arrive by the end of the day, and nectar has been brewed for it.

When I opened the sundeck doors before dawn this morning to let Beau out, the fragrance of dark, rain wet earth wafted in, and I felt like dancing.

Little Singers in the Trees

An annual cicada's song is the quintessential music of August, the sonorous vocal offering of a tiny jeweled being that emerges from underground, sheds its nymph skin, climbs high into the light-filled trees and sings for a mere handful of days before expiring and returning to earth. It's a joyful and ecstatic element in the slow irrevocable turning of one season into another.

Only male cicadas sing, but oh how they do sing, vibrating the complex abdominal membranes called tymbals over and over again to generate a raspy tune that will attract a mate. I have a lot to learn about identifying cicadas, but I think this one may be the bigger Linne's cicada rather than a Dog-day cicada. Whichever one it was, my little visitor was absolutely gorgeous.

I often find abandoned cicada shells on poplar trees in the Two Hundred Acre Wood but always feel fortunate when I encounter a newborn in all its pastel green splendor, sometimes still clinging to its discarded exoskeleton. Imagos (adults) darken as their new exoskeletons harden and wings expand, but there is a fair bit of variation in coloration. Some will retain greenish wings all the days of their lives.

For the last week or two, Beau and I have been rescuing cicadas from sidewalks, driveways and roadways and moving them to safe perches in hedgerows and mature trees where they will not be trampled by pedestrians and moving cars. On early walks, we keep a eye out for them, and we always encounter at least two or three before we arrive home again. Evenings, I take my mug of tea out to the garden and listen to cicada serenades for a while before the sun goes down. I shall be sad when I go outside one night, and there are no cicada songs to be heard.

Call it "cicada mind" and cherish the notion. Our task is one of cultivating just this kind of patience, acceptance, rapt attention and unfettered Zen sensibility, of embracing our allotted days fully and singing wherever we happen to be, then dissolving effortlessly back into the fabric of the world when the time comes.

Sunday, Saying Yes to the World

The world of everyday matter, when properly understood, embodies concepts of extraordinary beauty. Indeed, ordinary matter is built up from atoms that are, in a rich and precise sense, tiny musical instruments. In their interplay with light, they realize a mathematical Music of the Spheres that surpasses the visions of Pythagoras, Plato, and Kepler. In molecules and ordered materials, those atomic instruments play together as harmonious ensembles and synchronized orchestras.

 Frank Wilczek, A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design

Wordless - The Music of Summer Mornings

Friday Ramble - Spring Flowers and Village Musics

Around the corner, three sparrows are trilling their hearts out from a rooftop. A few doors away, a construction worker is belting out Doug Seeger's “Going Down to the River” as he installs drywall in the old Victorian house on the corner. The door of the place is wide open, and his rendering of the gospel classic is anything but tuneful, but it's a soulful crafting and fine stuff indeed.

There are tulips everywhere and in every shade of the rainbow, but on our rambles, it is the reds that grab our attention every time. The blooms are so bright they dazzle the eyes,  almost incandescent. I often think some of the most beautiful words in the English language are synonyms for the color red: cardinal, carmine, cerise, claret, crimson, flame, garnet, geranium, incarnidine, ruby, scarlet, vermilion, to name just a few.

Frilly golden daffodils and scarlet fringed poet's narcissus nod here and there, and violets sprinkle the garden in deep purple and creamy white. A neighbor's bleeding heart bush is covered with tiny green buds swaying to and fro on artfully arching stems. Magnolia trees in the village are coming to the end of their flowering, and they rain fragrant petals like snow. Wonder of wonders, the first bumble girls of the season have arrived, just in time to partake of the fragrant crabapple blossoms that are unfolding now.

What an exuberant trip springtime is! If I paused to take photos of every splendid thing we  encounter on our morning walks (and absolutely everything in the great wide world is splendid at this time of the year), we might not get home again for weeks.

April Return

Many local farm fields are still covered in snow, and there is not much for returning birds to eat here, but Canada geese (Branta canadensis) have arrived and taken up residence in soggy, windswept fields and along open waterways.

At sunset this week, the long "v" shapes of returning skeins trailed across the sky, one after another, the birds silhouetted against the setting sun and drifting clouds. Their homecoming songs could be heard for quite a distance. For the most part, skies here have been clear after dark, and the moon is only a day or two away from full so conditions for night flying have been perfect. As I drift off to sleep, I can hear geese passing over the house, and when I open my eyes in the morning before dawn, the first thing I hear is exuberant honking. The songs gladden my heart.

I am just so darned glad the birds are back. It is rather cold here, and there is still a lot of snow about, but it doesn't matter a fig or a twitter or a honk or a hoot. The great geese are home, and warmer, brighter times are on their way.

The River Sings As She Freezes

Little Singers in the Trees

An annual cicada's song is the music of August, a sonorous vocal offering from jeweled beings who emerge from the ground, shed their nymph skins, climb high into the light-filled trees and sing for a handful of days before expiring and returning to earth. It's a joyful and ecstatic element in the slow irrevocable turning of one season into another.

Only male cicadas sing but oh how they do sing, vibrating the complex abdominal membranes called tymbals over and over again to generate a raspy tune that will attract a mate. I have a lot to learn about identifying cicadas, but I think this one may be the bigger Linne's cicada rather than a Dog-day cicada. Whichever one it was, my little visitor was absolutely gorgeous.

I often find abandoned cicada shells on poplar trees in the Two Hundred Acre Wood but always feel fortunate when I encounter a newborn in all its pastel green splendor, sometimes still clinging to its discarded self. Imagos (adults) darken as their new exoskeletons harden and wings expand, but there is a fair bit of variation in coloration. Some will retain greenish wings all the days of their lives.

For the last week or two, Beau and I have been rescuing cicadas from sidewalks and roads and moving them to safe perches in or near mature trees where they will not be trampled by pedestrians, bicycles or moving cars. On early walks, we keep an eye out for them and always encounter at least two or three before we arrive home again.

Evenings, I take my mug of tea out to the garden and listen to cicada serenades before the sun goes down, and I shall be sad when I go outside one night, and there are no cicada songs to be heard.

Small Wonders

Canadian Tiger Swallowtail

(Papilio canadensis)

There have not been many swallowtails around this year, and I did a spirited, wobbly dance yesterday when a single glorious specimen flew past my freckled nose and alighted in a dense thicket of thorny blackberry canes along the trail into the woods - in my excitement, I almost dropped the camera.

A few minutes later, the first cicada of the season started to broadcast its call for a mate from somewhere high up in the trees. Again and again, its tymbal muscles contracted and relaxed, the resulting vibrations creating stridulant refrains in what is, to me anyway, summer's most resonant and engaging musical score.  Time stood still as I listened to that poignant and hopeful performance.

There are moments one remembers in the depths of winter, and this was one of them.  How sweet to listen to the season's first cicada rumble and rasp in the trees over my head, to stand and watch small wonders flutter and swoop on stained glass wings. Life simply doesn't get any better than this, and it doesn't get any wilder either.

Sequestered, Week 116 (CXVI)

The Music of What Happens

Around the corner, three song sparrows are trilling their hearts out from a rooftop.  Their pleasure in the day and the season is echoed by a construction worker a few doors away belting out Doug Seeger's “Going Down to the River” as he installs drywall in the old Victorian house on the corner.  The door of the place is wide open, and his rendering of the gospel classic is somewhat off key, but it's a right soulful crafting and fine stuff indeed.

This morning, the crows left me a gift in the birdbath, a dead field mouse with its entrails spilled out and floating forlornly around in limp spaghetti-ish circles.  Not the way one would like to start the day, and I returned to the deck and held my nose firmly over the aromatic mug of Italian dark roast waiting for me there. Later I donned rubber gloves, scrubbed out the birdbath and refilled it with clean water. The crows will return with new booty tomorrow, and we will commence clean up operations all over again.

Tulips are starting to bloom, and in every shade of the rainbow, but it is the reds that dazzle truly - the blooms are almost incandescent in the early sunlight and so bright they hurt one's eyes. Frilly daffodils and scarlet fringed narcissus nod here and there, and violets sprinkle the garden in deep purple and creamy white. A neighbor's bleeding heart bush is covered with tiny green buds swaying to and fro on artfully arching stems. The magnolia trees in the village are flowering and rain fragrant petals like snow, their perfume lingering everywhere. Wonder of wonders, the first few bumble girls of the season have arrived, just in time to partake of the crabapple blossoms that will be out in a day or three. When Lady Spring finally shows up here, she hits the ground running.

What a splendid trip this season is, and how much there is to feast one's eyes on: blue skies, trees leafing out, wildflowers popping up everywhere, bird feeders in the garden full of cardinals, nuthatches, chickadees, grosbeaks, song sparrows and goldfinches. If I were to stop and take photos of every splendid thing I see on morning walks (and everything is splendid at this time of the year), I might not get home again for weeks.

What the River Sang

A few rays of winter sunlight find the stream bed in the woods with its drifts of meringue snow, its gloss of ice and exposed current of stones.

In May, there were small rippling waterfalls and gurgling musics all the way along the little hillside river, and I passed many happy (and soggy) hours engaged in the activity known in my clan as "tuning the waterfalls". Fetchingly shod in wellies and carrying a rusty hoe, I traveled the waterway every week or two, removing dead leaves, twigs and other debris so the water could sing on its journey down the hill and through the woods to the beaver pond on the other side of the Two Hundred Acre Wood. Birds sang in the overstory as I worked, the cascade sparkled, and sunlight flickered through the old trees.  The river told me wonderful stories as I splashed about.

Tuning waterfalls is a Zen kind of activity, and an exercise in mindfulness for sure. One has to be truly in the moment and engaged in the exercise at hand, the simple uncluttered (or uncluttering) matter of helping the river sing. She has to stop hoeing occasionally to receive instructions from the water, and she has to listen carefully to what it is saying. One never removes all the fallen leaves, pebbles and sticks; a few must remain as grace notes in the wild hillside symphony.  As Wendell Berry wrote:

There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say "It is yet more difficult than you thought." This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

 

In the depths of this icy winter, the river on my hill in the Lanark highlands is silent, but I can still hear it singing over the stones as it did in May. For this ever baffled and oft impeded elderly female, that is a fine old thing.

Friday Ramble - Little Singers in the Trees

An annual cicada's song is the quintessential music of August, a sonorous vocal offering from small jeweled beings who emerge from underground, shed their nymph skins, climb high into the light-filled trees and sing for a handful of days before expiring and returning to the earth from which they came. Their song is a joyful and ecstatic element in the slow, irrevocable turning of one season into another.

Only male cicadas sing but oh how they do sing, vibrating the complex abdominal membranes called tymbals over and over again to generate a raspy tune that will attract a mate. I have a lot to learn about identifying cicadas, but I think this one may be the bigger Linne's cicada rather than a Dog-day cicada. Whichever one it was, my little visitor was absolutely gorgeous.

Every summer, my beloved and I used to find discarded exoskeletons on the poplar trees in our Two Hundred Acre Wood. We always felt fortunate when we encountered a newborn in all its pastel pink and green splendor, sometimes still clinging to its cast off shell (exuviae). We stood looking at them for ages, marveling at their colors, their luminous eyes and the delicate fretwork of their wings. Adult cicadas (imagos) darken as their new exoskeletons harden and wings expand, but there is a fair bit of variation in coloration, and some will retain greenish wings all the days of their lives.

There has been a remarkable hatch of cicadas in the village this summer. For the last week or two, Beau and I have been rescuing them from sidewalks and roadways and moving them to safer lodgings, protected areas where they will not be trampled by pedestrians, canines and moving vehicles. On early walks, we keep an eye out and always encounter a few before we arrive home again. Our little friends chatter and buzz and protest when we move them, but they settle into their new surroundings cheerfully and with a minimum of fuss. Evenings, I take my mug of tea out to the garden and listen to cicada serenades before the sun goes down, and I shall be sad when I go outside one night, and there are no more cicada songs to be heard.

Call it "cicada mind" and cherish the notion. Our task is one of cultivating just this kind of patience, acceptance, rapt attention and unfettered Zen sensibility, of embracing our allotted days fully and singing wherever we happen to be, then dissolving effortlessly back into the fabric of the world when the time comes.

Little Singers in the Trees

An annual cicada's song is the quintessential music of August, a sonorous vocal offering from jeweled beings who emerge from the ground, shed their nymph skins, climb high into the light-filled trees and sing for a handful of days before expiring and returning to earth. It's a joyful and ecstatic element in the slow irrevocable turning of one season into another.

Only male cicadas sing but oh how they do sing, vibrating the complex abdominal membranes called tymbals over and over again to generate a raspy tune that will attract a mate. This one may be the bigger Linne's cicada rather than a Dog-day cicada, but whichever one he was, he was absolutely gorgeous.

I often find abandoned cicada shells on trees in the Two Hundred Acre Wood, but I always feel fortunate when I encounter a newborn in all its pastel green splendor, sometimes still clinging to its discarded self. Imagos (new adults) darken as their exoskeletons harden and wings expand, but there is a fair bit of variation in coloration. Some will retain greenish wings all the days of their lives.

There has been a remarkable hatch of cicadas in the village this summer. For the last week or two, we have been rescuing them from sidewalks, driveways and roadways and moving them to safe perches in mature trees where they will not be trampled by pedestrians or moving cars. On early walks, Beau and I keep a eye out and we always encounter at least two or three before we arrive home again. Evenings, I take my mug of tea out to the garden and listen to cicada serenades before the sun goes down, and I shall be sad when I go outside one night, and there are no cicada songs to be heard.

Call it "cicada mind" and cherish the notion. Our task is one of cultivating just this kind of patience, acceptance, rapt attention and unfettered Zen sensibility, of embracing our allotted days fully and singing wherever we happen to be, then dissolving effortlessly back into the fabric of the world when the time comes.

Summer's Resonant Song

Little River Running Free

There are mornings when images speak for themselves, and this is one of them. Complete within themselves, the scenes we encounter on our morning walks have no need of my fumbling unwieldy efforts to capture them in a net of words.

I wish I could share the music of the water running over the rocks. The little river sparkles in the early light. It laughs and gurgles and sings as it flows along under the old trees. At times it sounds like wind bells, like an aeolian harp. At other times it sounds like a few bars from Resphigi's joyous tone poem, Pines of Rome, perhaps a fragment of Aaron Copeland's magnificent Applachian Spring.

Wordless Wednesday -- Singing Their Way Home