I'm in retreat today, which means that I spend the entire day in silence. What a fabulous gift this is!
The clouds of the past weeks finally gave way to the sun, so I sat for awhile on the back patio, working on a little counted cross stitch I'm making for a gift. The birds soon accepted my presence and let their incredible music fly around the yard and forest. I'm not very good at bird recognition, but for sure I heard cardinals, chickadees, robins, a mockingbird and a hermit thrush. Glorious.
As I looked down at my sewing, I noticed the shadows of carpenter bees (yes, they're still at it) flying around me. Little pale blue butterflies bounced past on their way to the herb garden. The last of the dogwood petals fluttered around my feet. Soon the shadow of a red-tailed hawk caught my attention, and I looked up to watch it soar in search of lunch. I wasn't getting much sewing done, but I has having a fine time.
Then something odd appeared. A bat. Now there's a sight you don't see much at 1:00 on a sunny afternoon. In fact, there's a sight you don't really want to see on a pleasant May afternoon. Bats are definitely night creatures, and they are supposed to be safely tucked in their little beds during the day. I immediately thought "rabies". For sure, this awful disease causes creatures to act strangely, doing things they'd never be caught dead doing otherwise. Like flying around in the daylight when you're supposed to be sawing logs in a safe roost.
"Never be caught dead" is an unfortunate phrase, since being caught dead is most likely what will soon happen to this marvelous creature. I can't think of one other reason why a full grown, large-ish bat would be zooming around with the sun shining through its amazing wings. My fascination overrode my apprehension, and I sat there watching it dive after insects. I often watch our little brown bats coming out after sunset, but I've never seen a bat in the full light of day, and I wasn't going to miss this opportunity. It flew over my head several times, but I guess I wasn't interesting enough, even to its diseased brain, to investigate further.
Good thing for me.
Finally it headed off to the woods. I'm really sorry this creature is probably very sick. Rabies can't be much fun. But I'm oh so glad I was sitting there in silence, letting Mother Earth show me a few of her wonders, when this bat made its rare appearance.
Eat well, my friend. And may your death be quick and peaceful.
Friday, May 27, 2005
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Genetic lessons
Simon caught a chipmunk today. If you've ever watched chipmunks for long you know that's a nifty trick. Simon is, oh, about 520 times their size, and though I wasn't there for the chase, I can imagine how incredibly fast and nimble Simon appeared as he ferreted (or chipmunked) out the little creature.
That's what Simon's ancestors were trained to do — find little furry critters who discover too late that a burrow in the ground is no match for a Weimaraner. This one wasn't in her burrow, though; she was crossing our porch. I'm sure she was out shopping for the kids because that's what's happening in the chipmunk world this time of year. It seems to be a full time job for chipmunk moms. (It may be for the dads, too; honestly, I can't tell the boys from the girls, so I'm shamelessly anthropomorphizing that feeding the 'munklettes is a motherly task.)
Catching is only half the job, though. These dogs were also trained to kill what they caught, and millennia of genetic coding can't be ignored. Simon dispatched the little body quickly and efficiently.
But there he stood, his prey at his feet, just staring down at her. Or him. These dogs were trained to kill for killing's sake, not for nourishment. I suspect the behavior was developed to make human life less complicated — let the dogs rid the place of rodents. So Simon wasn't sure what to do next. In fact, I don't think he was sure what he had just done.
I've seen Simon ecstatic, and I've seen him when he's angry (he bites the door when he's not allowed to come with us in the car), and I've seen him sad. I know these are human emotions and words, but the stimulus and response of a dog are suspiciously very much like our own.
Simon looked at that little chipmunk, and he looked at Sr. Lilli Ana, and he look at me. His ears were "hanging low", a sure sign he was feeling lost and unhappy. He loves animals, and I wonder if he just couldn't figure out why he, of all creatures, had just committed this violence. Of course I don't really know what he was thinking, but he moped around for hours afterward. Very uncharacteristic Simon-behavior.
I felt sad for him, and I felt sad for the little chipmunk and her babies, and I felt sad for Sr. Lilli Ana who had stood witness to the whole thing, helpless to stop the inevitable. But there's more to this than sadness. We humans have fooled around with Earth's life systems so much that we have no idea what should be or might have been if we'd participated as one species among many rather than as clumsy tinkerers and destroyers. We'll never know.
But I do know that violence has always had a place in this sacred Universe, much as we'd prefer it otherwise. Death is the only door to transformation, the only way for the adventure of life to proceed, for diversity to blossom, for vital energy to be exchanged. So I buried the little chipmunk in the fertile soil of the forest, blessed her life and her death, and thanked her for gift to the Earth.
And I hoped that chipmunk dads do go shopping.
That's what Simon's ancestors were trained to do — find little furry critters who discover too late that a burrow in the ground is no match for a Weimaraner. This one wasn't in her burrow, though; she was crossing our porch. I'm sure she was out shopping for the kids because that's what's happening in the chipmunk world this time of year. It seems to be a full time job for chipmunk moms. (It may be for the dads, too; honestly, I can't tell the boys from the girls, so I'm shamelessly anthropomorphizing that feeding the 'munklettes is a motherly task.)
Catching is only half the job, though. These dogs were also trained to kill what they caught, and millennia of genetic coding can't be ignored. Simon dispatched the little body quickly and efficiently.
But there he stood, his prey at his feet, just staring down at her. Or him. These dogs were trained to kill for killing's sake, not for nourishment. I suspect the behavior was developed to make human life less complicated — let the dogs rid the place of rodents. So Simon wasn't sure what to do next. In fact, I don't think he was sure what he had just done.
I've seen Simon ecstatic, and I've seen him when he's angry (he bites the door when he's not allowed to come with us in the car), and I've seen him sad. I know these are human emotions and words, but the stimulus and response of a dog are suspiciously very much like our own.
Simon looked at that little chipmunk, and he looked at Sr. Lilli Ana, and he look at me. His ears were "hanging low", a sure sign he was feeling lost and unhappy. He loves animals, and I wonder if he just couldn't figure out why he, of all creatures, had just committed this violence. Of course I don't really know what he was thinking, but he moped around for hours afterward. Very uncharacteristic Simon-behavior.
I felt sad for him, and I felt sad for the little chipmunk and her babies, and I felt sad for Sr. Lilli Ana who had stood witness to the whole thing, helpless to stop the inevitable. But there's more to this than sadness. We humans have fooled around with Earth's life systems so much that we have no idea what should be or might have been if we'd participated as one species among many rather than as clumsy tinkerers and destroyers. We'll never know.
But I do know that violence has always had a place in this sacred Universe, much as we'd prefer it otherwise. Death is the only door to transformation, the only way for the adventure of life to proceed, for diversity to blossom, for vital energy to be exchanged. So I buried the little chipmunk in the fertile soil of the forest, blessed her life and her death, and thanked her for gift to the Earth.
And I hoped that chipmunk dads do go shopping.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Fishing in the Garden
Did you know that if a really, really big giant came along and tried to pick up the Earth in her hand, she couldn't do it? Nope. The Earth isn't solid enough; the "hard" ground we walk on is just a thin, fragile layer of rocks and soil — everything else is fluid or mighty close to it. The Earth would just run right through her fingers, like an egg with no shell. Pretty amazing.
That's a little hard to accept when we've had to call in heavy-duty equipment just to till our backyard for this year's expanded garden. Looked pretty solid to me. Felt like it, too. And in this little corner of our bioregion there seem to be more rocks than soil.
Our rocks were deposited here by glacial movement, so when we found a patch of small-ish rocks, we were pretty sure the mother rock wasn't far away. Sure enough, we'd soon hear that solid "thunk" as a shovel met up with her. When you dig long enough in this soil, you learn to guage the size of a buried rock just by the sound the shovel makes.
When we'd come across one of those, the work changed from tilling the soil to digging around the edges of a boulder. Little by little she was revealed ... a bump here, a shelf there, an odd craggy place over there. When a large rock is being unearthed, there is a stage where it looks like a whale surfacing for a breath of air and a little look-see.
The soil holds other wonders, too. Every handful contains millions of organisms. Most of those are too small for us to see. But the ones we can are numerous and darned interesting. Dark maroon millipedes twist and spin through the loosened soil; earthworms are everywhere, beetles, roly-polies, teensy spiders, grubs and ants of at least three different varieties are swimming around just under our feet.
Even the rocks move constantly, boiling in slow motion toward the surface. The rich layers at the top of Earth's crust aren't any more solid than the Atlantic Ocean. Just because we can walk on it, our perspective says "solid", but for the life that teems in its midst, the soil is beautifully fluid.
Maybe we should call it the Earth Ocean.
That's a little hard to accept when we've had to call in heavy-duty equipment just to till our backyard for this year's expanded garden. Looked pretty solid to me. Felt like it, too. And in this little corner of our bioregion there seem to be more rocks than soil.
Our rocks were deposited here by glacial movement, so when we found a patch of small-ish rocks, we were pretty sure the mother rock wasn't far away. Sure enough, we'd soon hear that solid "thunk" as a shovel met up with her. When you dig long enough in this soil, you learn to guage the size of a buried rock just by the sound the shovel makes.
When we'd come across one of those, the work changed from tilling the soil to digging around the edges of a boulder. Little by little she was revealed ... a bump here, a shelf there, an odd craggy place over there. When a large rock is being unearthed, there is a stage where it looks like a whale surfacing for a breath of air and a little look-see.
The soil holds other wonders, too. Every handful contains millions of organisms. Most of those are too small for us to see. But the ones we can are numerous and darned interesting. Dark maroon millipedes twist and spin through the loosened soil; earthworms are everywhere, beetles, roly-polies, teensy spiders, grubs and ants of at least three different varieties are swimming around just under our feet.
Even the rocks move constantly, boiling in slow motion toward the surface. The rich layers at the top of Earth's crust aren't any more solid than the Atlantic Ocean. Just because we can walk on it, our perspective says "solid", but for the life that teems in its midst, the soil is beautifully fluid.
Maybe we should call it the Earth Ocean.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
The Pause that Refreshes
As I reworked our daily schedule for the next few weeks, I discovered something. I've always known that as spring progresses the days get longer faster. I always thought that was true until June 21 when, on the journey around the sun, Earth's axis tilt begins to cause the northern hemisphere to lean further away from the sun, making the days shorter again.
But here's what I didn't know: during May, the times of sunrise and sunset are changing pretty dramatically — about a full minute each day. This is consistent throughout the month. OK, so far so good. But at the beginning of June, everything seems to just stop. From beginning to end, the sunrise change is zero! Here at Bluestone Farm the sun rises at 5:23 AM on June 1, and it's still rising at exactly 5:23 AM on June 30.
During the month there is a little bit of time wobble, a minute here or there. On several different days the sun will appear three minutes earlier, but that reflects the entire swing. Amazing. There are perfectly good explanations for this, of course. But why is it so? It certainly could have been different — but it's not.
I was taught that ancient folks were simple-minded and superstitious, and thinking that anything other than another human could "speak" with them was just one more proof of their backwardness. But I imagine early peoples on Earth noticing this little quirk in the sky; its irregularity must have communicated something important to them, as all things in the natural world did.
I'm beginning to learn a few things about Mother Earth myself, and I know for sure that the natural world does communicates with us, all the time. We just decided to quit listening. (Well, mostly ... all of you who bake bread know that the dough "tells" you when it's ready to be set aside to rise, right?)
Somewhere in our past we resigned our membership in the Earth community of life and began to become our own teachers. We just stopped learning from the marvelous planet that gave us life and of which we are one of many expressions. Instead we decided that everything on Earth except us is either unconscious or completely lifeless, unimportant in itself, and available (in fact, meant to be) for our use.
We are a species long on verbal communication, but a little short on wisdom.
So, what about the little strangeness in the sunrise time? I can only tell you what it whispers in my own ear. When something in my life is about to undergo a complete change of direction, I've found it best to hesitate on the brink. Wisdom speaks in the midst of that kind of stillness, for one thing. And there is also something delicious about balancing on the knife-edge between surrender and anticipation. I guess that's why every roller coaster in the world begins with a steep hill that gives one that moment of hesitation at the crest, stretching out the opportunity to think about it before plunging onward, a chance to feel the drag of the upward pull and grab a look at the thrill ahead at the same time.
Before I know it, it will be June. And I'll have a whole month to think about it.
But here's what I didn't know: during May, the times of sunrise and sunset are changing pretty dramatically — about a full minute each day. This is consistent throughout the month. OK, so far so good. But at the beginning of June, everything seems to just stop. From beginning to end, the sunrise change is zero! Here at Bluestone Farm the sun rises at 5:23 AM on June 1, and it's still rising at exactly 5:23 AM on June 30.
During the month there is a little bit of time wobble, a minute here or there. On several different days the sun will appear three minutes earlier, but that reflects the entire swing. Amazing. There are perfectly good explanations for this, of course. But why is it so? It certainly could have been different — but it's not.
I was taught that ancient folks were simple-minded and superstitious, and thinking that anything other than another human could "speak" with them was just one more proof of their backwardness. But I imagine early peoples on Earth noticing this little quirk in the sky; its irregularity must have communicated something important to them, as all things in the natural world did.
I'm beginning to learn a few things about Mother Earth myself, and I know for sure that the natural world does communicates with us, all the time. We just decided to quit listening. (Well, mostly ... all of you who bake bread know that the dough "tells" you when it's ready to be set aside to rise, right?)
Somewhere in our past we resigned our membership in the Earth community of life and began to become our own teachers. We just stopped learning from the marvelous planet that gave us life and of which we are one of many expressions. Instead we decided that everything on Earth except us is either unconscious or completely lifeless, unimportant in itself, and available (in fact, meant to be) for our use.
We are a species long on verbal communication, but a little short on wisdom.
So, what about the little strangeness in the sunrise time? I can only tell you what it whispers in my own ear. When something in my life is about to undergo a complete change of direction, I've found it best to hesitate on the brink. Wisdom speaks in the midst of that kind of stillness, for one thing. And there is also something delicious about balancing on the knife-edge between surrender and anticipation. I guess that's why every roller coaster in the world begins with a steep hill that gives one that moment of hesitation at the crest, stretching out the opportunity to think about it before plunging onward, a chance to feel the drag of the upward pull and grab a look at the thrill ahead at the same time.
Before I know it, it will be June. And I'll have a whole month to think about it.
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