Fleeting Riches

You need to be in place early if you want to know them in the fall, for after their initial
just-past-dawn sighs, they slip back into obscurity.
Brown thrashers are shy and hidden hunters, lurking furtively in the underbrush and rummaging in fallen leaves in search of prey.
They and the eastern towhees are the first morning voices this time of year and I am surrounded by “chucks” and “to-whees” as they awaken in the rose and bittersweet tangles at the edge of the woodlands.

A ways off, towards the river, bald eagles chortle from above and
wood ducks squeak from below, bookends on the marsh’s vertical space.
Near at hand, cardinals “chink” in the thickets and the white-throats, so exuberant at the newness of day, seem unable to contain their sweet song.
“Why?” I wonder, smiling at their lyrics. “O, Canada, Canada, Canada.”
(Or is it “Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody?”)

Autumn’s offerings are still obscured by the dimness, as the crows stealthily fly in from their night-time roost across the river. There will be time for bravado when the sun is fully up.
Birds, no more than silent shadows against a lightening sky begin to fly about, and near at hand, a hermit thrush softly announces his recent arrival.
“Welcome!” I whisper, wishing him rest and abundance during his winter residency.

Gradations-of-grey landscape gradually takes on color as the chorus crescendos
briefly, before dying away as abruptly as it began.
A pale crescent moon hangs in the morning sky, a shade somewhere between white and a soft yellow. What do you call that color – lighter than the blond clumps of Indiangrass and warmer than the cup-shaped spider webs, woven into the tips of the dried meadow stalks?
Even as I wonder, it becomes more faint.

Sweet gums stand in clusters, reminiscent of mottled pyramids in the neglected field, a mosaic of reds, yellows, oranges and purples.
The rough and grass-leaved goldenrods are browning, flowers finished and seed heads ripening, color that gardeners might think of as senescence but is, in fact, the promise of plenty.

Fingers and toes beginning to freeze, I turn towards home.
As the early singers’ songs have hushed, new voices take their place.
Flickers, downy woodpeckers and nuthatches have awakened and strike up their morning conversations. Pileated woodpeckers laugh in the distance.

Sunlight fully falls on coloring foliage in a scene transformed, missed in the darkness.
Gold of pawpaw and spicebush, silver of spiders’ silken strands drenched with dew, copper of pin oak and bronze of the dogwoods, ruby red rose-hips and sumac, emerald cedar and the delicate, fine white lace of frost asters.
Autumn treasures, richness of ephemeral wealth on this chilled and frosty morning.

Sacred Spaces

Do you have sacred spaces, where you meet yourself and Him who breathed the world into being? Spaces in which you find refuge or comfort, exuberance or vitality? On this wild and windy autumn day, I have been thinking back to those spaces that have welcomed me, taken my mind off of myself and garnered my full attention for a time.

Spaces like the yard I nudged towards abundance when we lived in Pennsylvania.

Or the marsh that lies between us and the Potomac River, as day breaks and I watch and listen in the day.

Or a patch of leaves in the grass, so arresting that all I can do is stop and sigh a prayer of thanksgiving for the momentary gift of beauty.

And then there was Trail Wood, where my days were filled with noticing and reflection and a kinship with those who had gone before. The following is a piece that came out of that week, in deep appreciation for Edwin and Nellie Teale and the land they stewarded and loved.

Beneficence

I have been brought to this sacred space, for sacred it has become to me who has never been here before. Perhaps a pilgrimage, I have come to watch for fireflies over the fields by night, swallows by day…to listen to crickets and katydids, to late summer bird song and, if I’m lucky, rain on the roof of the old house. I have come to be a small piece of the history of this place, whose future is yet to be written.

 I spend my days outside, a solitary audience, eager to witness the unfolding dramas of this refuge. They come as unexpected gifts, barely audible echoes from Eden, fulfillment of a life time’s longings.

She walks close behind me, as I sit at the picnic table, the mama turkey, murmuring softly to her seven, worried-looking babies strung out behind her, trying to keep up.
Again I sit, and a red-shouldered hawk drops into the nearby catalpa tree, steadily watching me watching him. Does he, as do I, sense communion, as we stare into one another’s eyes?

I wonder at the young rabbits grazing along the driveway, watchful, but not overly concerned with my coming and going. And, in the meadow, downy woodpeckers forage on mullein stalks, gazing steadily as I pass by. Do wild creatures know when they are welcomed?

 “A magic place?” he asked me. A Beatrix Potter kind of place, it would seem.
If there be magic, it comes not by accident, but by the many long years of beneficence towards this land. A living invitation by one who loved the wild for its own sake, who equated ownership with stewardship, who was at home with the untamed inhabitants of this farm.

There is holiness here, born of gratitude for what has been given, where man is but a participant in the life around him and an observer of that into which he cannot enter. Long years of kindliness have fostered fellowship between the wild ones who have flourished within these bounds and the humans who have lived alongside them. I pray that, far into the future, when we who love this land are gone, the kinship between man and creature will persist and this sanctuary, birthed and rooted in peaceful coexistence, will live on.

Where are your own sacred spaces? 

Comes the Day

Some of my favorite summer sounds – green frogs, and field and woodland katydids are echoing together in the darkness. “Do they sing all night?” I wonder.
Yes and no, I find, as I am awakened by a pair of barred owls calling in the wee hours of the morning. The katydids are quiet, but the green frogs sing on.

The woods are almost silent in the blackness. Except for intermittent rustles in the underbrush, I hear nothing on my way to the bench beside Beaver Pond. Hidden from my eyes, tiny creatures go about their nocturnal business. Do they see me pass by?

Eastern wood peewees are the first to awaken, as the last star disappears into the dawn. Faint chip notes at first, as though the birds are stretching and slowly opening their eyes, not quite ready for the morning. And then, the full peewee song from somewhere on my right, only the one. Soon, another calls from across the water. In answer or just coincidence? Long before others begin to sing in the day, these two converse, on and on. “What is their story?” I muse.

The stillness is broken by a loud unseen splash, followed again by stillness. I am resigned to how often I miss seeing the event that produces pond noise. Usually, I see ripples but the principle player is gone. This time, a beaver emerges from the mist, on a zigzag path towards its dam, mouth full of…what? He heaves himself onto the dam’s slope and disgorges his heavy load of mud and plant matter, carefully patting it into place. Otter-like, he slides back into the water and with a quiet “kerplunk”, dives for another load. How long into the daylight will he work?

I wondered when they would show up. “So, soon?” I sigh.  At least their buzzy droning, closer and closer to my face and ears, holds promise that the phoebes and eastern kingbirds might soon break their fast and eat well. Even for this irritating swarm, I give thanks.

A momentary lull in the morning’s progression invites more questions. What causes that “clacking” sound, seemingly coming from a patch of water lilies? What are those tiny dust-like particles that cover the pond’s surface, seen only at first light? Those two shapes on far-off logs appear to be green herons. Did they sleep there through the night?

As the water now reflects the surrounding trees, the full chorus begins. Robins squabbling, belted kingfishers rattling, catbirds mewing, chickadees chattering, kingbirds’ staccato calls and goldfinches’ musical ones, all in a shared litany of recognition that the work of survival is about to begin, yet again. The kingfishers are the first to fly in and noisily take their positions, except that they don’t seem to know which positions to take and fly repeatedly, and loudly, from branch to branch. Do they really go through this ritual every morning?

Finally, the chittering of barn swallows! Four of them appear, seemingly from nowhere. Just these four, for a few minutes the pond all to themselves. Suddenly, the air space is full of zipping and diving silhouettes as the rough-winged and tree swallows begin their aerial foraging, twittering on the wing. Gliding and dipping, as in an intricate dance, they avoid collision. What sense guides their movements?

What have I missed while studying the swallows? Young Baltimore orioles feeding in the autumn olive above the beaver dam, warbling vireos singing out their melodies across the way, the two green herons croaking and chasing one another from log to log, vying for the best fishing spot and, “Yes!”, now most of the pond’s perches host the phoebes, kingbirds and peewees who have been waiting for just the right moment to commence their breakfast search.

Now, an hour into daylight, the mingled voices of an avian choir echoing from above, the beaver makes a final trip to the dam, pats down its last bit of earth, turns and swims purposefully away. Another day has fully come to Beaver Pond.

Much Needed Respite

I wrote this piece some time ago, but, in honor of a friend who has just put down one of her best friends of the last 12 years, I am posting it again. As I have read the words, I realize how true they are for me, yet again, in these corporate days of uncertainty, as well as private wrestlings. May they bless you, as well. What I write of the garden, is also abundantly true of spending time anywhere in the natural world.

Pollinators, pollinators everywhere in the yard! Bees of all shapes and sizes, butterflies and hummingbirds...Everywhere I look there is buzzing, humming and the fluttering of wings...swamp milkweed, green-headed coneflower, ironweed, joe-pye weed, cardinal flower, garden phlox all playing host to our tiny native wildlife… I feel like a shepherdess winding through the plantings, keeping watch over her flock, ensuring that what they need for life and health is provided.

I have spent much of my day outside today, longing for peace and respite from the upheaval and concern of these tumultuous times. Sometimes I go into the garden as a scientist, to watch and observe the biological interactions. Sometimes I go for the joy of myriad colors, fragrances and bounty of life. But sometimes I wander into the garden because I am troubled, and it becomes a place of sanctuary, a place of refuge for me as much as for wildlife.

The longer we live, the longer we love people and pets, places and endeavors, the greater the loss when they are gone. Over the years, loss upon loss changes us and makes us more tender or more hardened, more pliable or more rigid. We either cooperate with such painful formation or we resist it. 

Stepping into my backyard, where the wild comes to live alongside me, does not remove the fears or losses of my life, but it provides a space large enough to hold the accompanying emotions and ensures comfort as no other place can. The life found there pries my eyes off myself and points them to something, and Someone, greater than my worries. I am reminded that there are seasons and cycles to life and that calm really does return after storms.  I am reminded that life goes on. The garden that was created to be a home for wildlife has also become home to me. It has become a habitat for all.