End of August Noticing

What are you noticing as you walk out your front or back door lately? Where I live, it is still hot and humid, and though the weather forecast suggests that the heat will subside, temporarily, at least, I cannot yet believe it. Today, it feels as if summer will last forever, in spite of the abundant signs to the contrary.

There were voices missing from my early morning woodland walk this morning, voices I listened for, but did not hear. The wood thrushes who seemed to sing more lazily last week, did not sing at all today and it has been a while since I have heard the ovenbirds or orioles. Red-eyed vireos still questioned, however, and a handful of eastern wood peewees softly sang their musical "pee a wee", as if in greeting as I walked by. Blue jays are abundant, as their migration has begun and northern jays are passing through regularly, if the chorus of their raucous calls is any indication. The yard is full of hummingbirds - males, females and juveniles with fat little tummies, all feeding constantly, in preparation for their long flight south. It seems too soon to think about saying goodbye, and yet I know that in a few weeks other birds will come and settle in for the winter. It won't be long before the predictable arrival of white-throated sparrows and juncos and I know that I will miss them, too, when it is their turn to leave, next spring.

As happens in late summer, spider webs are everywhere these days. Some are strung across trails, as if the spiders know that insects are as appreciative of flying in open space as humans are of walking there. In fact, one can't walk any of the wooded trails this time of year, without repeatedly running into sticky, silken strands. Other webs are large, intricately patterned circular structures that may be spun 15 feet off the ground. When covered with dew, and hit by the first rays of sun in the morning, they look to be made of diamonds, glistening in the trees. 

The late summer roadside and meadow flowers are coming into bloom, and all are covered with pollinators of all kinds. Joe-pye weed billows into tall pink clouds and grows lush in the ditches along the roads. Hyssop-leaved and late thoroughwort are becoming a white haze that sets off the bright yellow rough-leaved goldenrod and various beggartick species. White wood aster is blooming in the woodland edges and soon will be joined by blue-stemmed and zigzag goldenrod, followed later by the tiny-flowered white frost asters that are the primary source of pollen and nectar as the growing season winds down. 

The trees are also beginning to foretell the coming of autumn, though more subtly than they will a few weeks from now. While black gums and sassafras are the first to boast a few bright red or yellow leaves, black walnut foliage is the first to fall in profusion. Their descent is just beginning, golden leaves fluttering and twirling softly to the ground. The yellow poplars are beginning to color, as well, and here and there is the crimson of solitary red maple leaves, early to turn, for whatever reason.

These are days to savor, despite the heat. It is a time of abundance for all...ripened berries and plenty of insects for the birds, still-green leaves for the many cricket and katydids who are still singing mightily, nectar and pollen for myriad pollinators, acorns and hickory nuts for deer and squirrels. It is a time for gratitude for what the earth can provide, if allowed to and, for me, gratitude to the Giver of all, for allowing me to share in the life of this land and its inhabitants.

Not Yet

The black gums have begun to turn, a mottled orange haze against a still-green canopy.
"Nooo!!!" a part of me cries,
Time, like sand, slipping through my fingers.
"I am not ready! Don't go....not yet," I whimper.

Scattered sassafras and tulip trees yellowing, the odd red maple and woodbine coloring crimson.
The wood thrush's song, slower, more wistful sounding,
 a song of soon-leaving rather than just-arrived.
Are they readying to move on?

Why no sadness at the hummingbird migration?
With feeders and plantings, do I feel like a benefactor in their journey, as if that gives some semblance of control?
My planted landscape colors in autumn - reds, yellows, oranges, purples...another illusion of control, in a look I have designed?

But, the black gum leaves...unexpected, entirely on their own schedule.
So like my body, getting on in years, signs of the of the senescence that will surely come in its own time.
Is this at root in the autumn melancholy? The whisper of advancing age, of endings?

Contemplative practice invites the acceptance of what is, not what I wish were.
Acceptance, the opposite of striving, of holding on.
Will I ever learn?

Reflections from Trail Wood

When, in 1959, after a three year search, Edwin and Nellie Teale finally found, their place in the country, “a place to live in, and to die in too,” as Edwin wrote, they put down deep roots and settled in to live out the rest of their lives. From the beginning, they envisioned Trail Wood, a patchwork of woodlands, wetlands and fields, as a refuge for themselves and the creatures who lived there, a place where first they, and then others might study and connect with the wild that surrounded them.

          As I entered into my first full day of residency at Trail Wood, Vern, the caretaker wrote to me these words, “We are counting on you, and other artists, to feel inspired by this immersion at Trail Wood and hope your inspiration can re-sow the seeds of hope and awareness of our place in the natural world.” His message filled me with a sense of responsibility and the realization that my time there was not just for me, and not even just to expand awareness of the Teales and Trail Wood, itself, but for the benefit of the whole of the land that is our home and our relationship with it. It was with that sense of purpose and gratitude that my stay was filled with observation and with writing. My days began at dawn and developed into a repeated rhythm of walking and observing for several hours, and then writing for several hours, until at last, at night, too tired to do either, I drifted off to sleep listening to crickets and katydids in the meadows, and green and bullfrogs in the pond below the old house.

Every time I stepped outdoors there was something to note.  At times, my observations came as I sat still- beavers working ­­­in the ponds; broad-winged hawks, first heard and then seen from the summerhouse; the hummingbird who dropped into the lone Joe-Pye weed water’s edge; the mama turkey, leading her 7 youngsters behind me as I sat at the picnic table in the yard; the few remaining fireflies of the season; the red-shouldered hawk that flew into the catalpa tree as I sat and watched him watching me; the vast expanse of the night sky with Milky Way and all the stars I cannot see where I now live.

         Many times, the observations came as I was walking and exploring the paths that ran through the woodlands and fields of Trail Wood – more species of ferns co-existing together than I had ever seen before; cardinal flowers in secluded patches along streams’ edges; a wood frog sitting in the path of Ground Pine Crossing Trail; acres of mapleleaf viburnum and beaked hazelnuts growing as understory beneath black and white oaks, hickories and yellow birch; dainty blooming rattlesnake plantain and shinleaf, flowers so easily missed and stepped upon if not careful; newly fledged families of red-bellied, downy, hairy and pileated woodpeckers and yellow-bellied sapsuckers hopping around in trees along the Far North Woods trail; silent but active scarlet tanagers, Baltimore orioles and American redstarts as I walked through the late summer woods, along with the more vocal Eastern wood peewees,  phoebes and kingbirds.

And then, there were observations of what I expected, but did not see, and the questions their absence posed. Why were there so few pollinators, as compared with what I have seen in Pennsylvania and Maryland, particularly on the mountain mint and wild bergamot? Why were there so few spider webs strung across the trails? Why were there no northern mockingbirds or Carolina wrens around the house or inhabiting the brushy tangles along the lower pond? Questions, I am still wondering about…

As I walked the woods and fields, I realized that I recognized the majority of the plants I saw, and all of the birds, and so decided to create detailed lists of both, in hopes that having such information might be of use to the Connecticut Audubon Society, which oversees Trail Wood. Moving deliberately, inching along one slow step at a time, I scanned the forest floor, the understory and the canopy. The plants I knew, I listed immediately, but it was the ones I wasn’t sure of that took the hours of time and effort. In the end, I had relatively complete late-summer plant lists for three of the trails, including 21 tree species, 14 shrubs, 5 vines, 8 Ferns, 35 herbaceous perennials and 3 grasses and sedges. Not counted were the other sedges I didn’t have the time or patience for. The total bird species list stood at 62, not bad for late summer when the birds are less vocal.

As much as I enjoyed the freedom to be outdoors for as long as I wanted to be, I also enjoyed the time and initiative dedicated to writing. I have never had, and may never have again, such a time in which nothing was expected of me other than to immerse myself in the natural world, and to write. And as I wrote, it seemed a new voice, a new way of writing emerged, almost as if spontaneously…not exactly prose, as I knew it anyway, and not exactly poetry, but perhaps a blend of the two. The pieces I worked on while at Trail Wood seemed to come into being almost without effort, almost as if by magic, though I still work on revisions. Now that I am back, I continue putting words to paper, feeling almost as though it has become a calling, a vocation, of sorts. When I was at Trail Wood, I felt that I had come as a person who sometimes wrote, but was leaving as a writer. I am exceedingly thankful for this opportunity that was given me, and, as Vern wrote, pray that my works, can indeed, “resow the seeds of hope and awareness of our place in the natural world” for those who read them.

You Are Here - A Prayer of Thanksgiving from Trail Wood

                                                   
Are you with me now, now, even when I fail to acknowledge you? When I am so immersed in the glory of the place to which you have brought me, when I am so taken with the gift, so as to forget the Giver...Are you here?

Do you delight in my delight in your works? For even long millennia after the land was first formed, through all the changes over time, your hand prints surround me.
As the very air I breathe or the light that fills the meadow, your presence,
Your very Self, is here.

How human-like to forget, to pretend that what you have granted can take your place.
And yet, do you not invite me into remembering? Do I not fall asleep at night, finally in the darkness, when I can no longer see the woodlands, or the words upon the page,
thanking You?

There is this dance we do with you, is there not? We ask, sometimes we receive, and then, unimaginably, we forget that we asked. And, in your mercy, you remind us again and again, that we are yours. And You are here.

There and Back Again

Edwin Teale wrote, in A Naturalist Buys and Old Farm, "Sitting under apple trees, walking down the lane, following the wood trails, circling the pond at sunset, our life here as seemed all kernel and no husk. It embraces one of the rarest things in modern life-moments of solitude." At Trail Wood, I found that same solitude, as well the deep companionship of the land and those that live on and in it. It was a place that, I realized after I had been there a little while, I had known for a long time, much like when you meet a person with whom you feel an instant connection. I felt enfolded there, welcomed and freed to not only search out the physical space of Edwin's lands, house and even his personal study, but to explore my own interior spaces, as well.

My days were a rhythm of walking and writing, with some sitting in outdoor spaces thrown in. They were days of observation and contemplation, no two the same, but each one similar. I awoke at dawn, to the voices of catbirds, goldfinches and at least one family of house wrens who foraged in the shrubby growth around the house. I went to sleep to the sound of robust cone-head (yes, that is a katydid species) and true katydids.  I spent a good bit of time at the beaver pond, one morning arriving before dawn to watch the day come into being, chronicling the changes, moment by moment.

I walked the woodlands, making lists of tree, shrub and herbaceous species found there, something I was fairly certain no one had done recently, maybe ever, since Edwin's time. 

When I came back to the house after hours of botanizing, my brain took refuge in writing. When, after a few hours of writing, my brain was ready to go back out into the wilds, again, sometimes in the far off reaches of the property, sometimes in the meadows near the house.

I am still processing much of last week, and its connection to and implications for life in the here and now, and I will, no doubt, muse about both in this writing space, in the future. And when I am ready, I'll add some of my new writings from last week, new in content, but also new in form and voice.

I am exceedingly grateful for the opportunity I had to be in such a sacred space, grateful to God who took me there, grateful to the people who welcomed me so warmly to Trail Wood, and grateful for those of you who thought of me, prayed for me and have encouraged me to be who I am, over time. Thank you, all.