Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category

A tale

Posted in Nature, Psycho-Bubbles on November 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

A fire burned through these parts.  It had smoldered for years, contained.  The ground grew resistant to the heat, things died, were forgotten.  A lot forgotten. Critters fled.  A strange, strained, heated landscape.

Finally jumped its firebreak a few years back, consumed all in its path.  Hot, unendurable, more things died, what was left – ran.

Fire died back, died out mostly.  It was part natural, part man-made.  They jailed the fella who caused it, life sentence for the destruction he caused.  When a tree falls in the forest – someone cared.

Life is coming back, the rocks have cooled.  Critters starting to trust the place again.  Other men work to heal the landscape, plant seeds that grow only after trial by fire.  Funny how that works.

Part demon, part nature, fire.  This landscape will see beauty again this generation, better in the next.  Beauty takes time.   Sometimes beauty takes fire.

Read Full Post »

And then there were none

Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged , , on October 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The last butterfly is slowly bobbing up and down on the launch pad, wings drying in a slight breeze.

Of six caterpillars, five survived to attempt the southward trip to Mexico.  Locally, the days, nights, and flowers remain warm – initial conditions could not be better.

There is majesty to these butterflies.  They became what they were not, utterly unaware of the original destiny contained within their caterpillar skins.  Their  metaphor for human transformation is succinct.

But metaphor only.

Beautiful, compelling, inspiring.  While I may dream of being a butterfly, or perhaps they dream of being me – their transformative process is not ours.

Successful metamorphosis is complete, unforgiving, relentlessly onward – archetypal in Nature.

Although we work our lives for creativity, tread both earth and sky, and mature in liminal space – humans are forever cyclical.  Unlike the caterpillar, we ride the arrow of time both ways.

Evolution, revolution – forward, backward, dropping off pieces for the future and going back for more.

The butterflies have gone on. Autumn leaves are falling.  Inward, outward, down to start again.

Read Full Post »

Up Up and Away

Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, The Garden, tagged on October 9, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Mid-morning Friday on the loveliest autumnal day you ever saw, Mr. Saturday Night and a sibling emerged from stillness.

The bejeweled chrysalis that contained their transformation became crunchy, clear debris.  Organic artifact to changing times.

Home from school sick, my oldest and I marveled at the still-wet sheets of orange and black silken wings.  With such utterly different form, I could not help but wonder what those now-winged former caterpillars might be thinking, feeling – in their way.

When my youngest arrived home,  the jars were conveyed to the launch pad – a large Agastache plant in full bloom.  With a bigger body and wingspan than its cohort, Mr. Saturday Night fumbled a bit as they clung to flowers in the breeze.

Within minutes each butterfly flew up to a quaking aspen, it’s yellow mottled leaves of autumn offering perfect camouflage.  The two swayed gently up and down until dusk,  then disappeared into the garden.

As they moon rose and its siblings took to the sky, I brought the deteriorating chrysalis of Hunny Bear into the garden and nestled it under the milkweed plant upon which it was born, and once saw the sun, the moon,  maybe felt the breeze.

Butterfly number three emerged early yesterday morning, anxious to be off.  Born to run, there was no hanging around for him.  Crawling off my hand onto the launch pad, he was aloft and southbound in minutes.

This afternoon monarch butterflies, one, then two, gliding about my garden from time to time.  I have to smile.

Read Full Post »

While I am at it

Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged , , on October 5, 2011| 1 Comment »

Yesterday my youngest went on a nature walk with his class around the wetland area surrounding the school campus.  While surveying a stand of milkweed, he was thrilled to locate  a monarch caterpillar noshing on a leaf and excitedly shared his find with the class.

We went back after school today to take a look at our newly found friend.  My son ran ahead of me on the boardwalk built to protect the environs, only to reappear seconds later downcast.  The milkweed stand, some two feet away from the boardwalk had been mowed, only shards of stems and ragged leaves remained — gone too was the young caterpillar.

This  mishap echoes the greater decimation of milkweed across the United States.  As the primary host plant of the monarch butterfly, milkweed  has come under attack from habitat development, herbicide use – and errant human aesthetics – of the kind that mowed the native habitat in our wetland.

We take so much, we give so little.  In my small garden I cultivate five different varieties of milkweed, provide cover, shade and water.  It does not touch the loss of one or  one million acres of lost milkweed – but at least it exists.  Do you want to keep breathing oxygen?  Plant a tree.  Want to see beauty on the wing?  Plant a milkweed.   Think global, act local, as they say.

Read Full Post »

And still they wait

Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, The Garden, tagged on October 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Monarch update.

Having passed a pleasant weekend in a sunny window, five chrysalis wait.

The sixth chrysalis, the last caterpillar to go, has turned almost black.  Although chrysalis darken  before emergence,  this change in colour is too soon.  It speaks of  process gone wrong and very likely a caterpillar not likely to make the leap.

His (or her) name was Hunny Bear, the youngest and smallest, and named so for the habit of oozling half-way out the air-holes of its jar.  Much like Mr. Winnie-the-Pooh, who became stuck one fine day in the Hundred Acre Woods, just astride Rabbit’s hole.

Cold nights prompt me to  cover zinnias in my garden, to ward off frost.   It is October now.  Given their instinct to migrate instead of mate, late summer monarchs live longer than those borne of spring.  If they survive, their life span stretches six months instead of six weeks.  Something to be said for moving on.

Today I saw a bright orange monarch trippling through.  Could not help but think of those waiting yet on the sill.   Only time will tell.

Read Full Post »

Status of status

Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, The Garden, tagged , on September 30, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Returning to our regularly scheduled programming…

According to Monarch Watch, overall monarch migration numbers east of the Rockies are down.  The autumn migration is underway with Mexico-bound monarchs just broaching drought-stricken territories in Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas – as the report put it, 1000 miles of hell – a nearly flowerless / nectar less and waterless expanse.

Our six intrepid adventurers remain chrysalis-bound as days grow shorter, nights colder, and nectar bearing flowers in my own garden begin to fade.  Emergence is expected within two to eight days.

Will these stalwart individuals survive their transformation?  Will  daytime temperatures and nectar supplies still support life when they do emerge?  Can they endure the journey south and navigate  inhospitable terrain to find their own kind?

…Wait, this sounds like life after divorce…

Stay tuned.

Read Full Post »

Status

Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged , on September 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Six chrysalis. Pale green and gold that should belong only to the wee folk, borrowed.

Quiet. Still. Seemingly asleep.

But  – given their gestation from caterpillar to butterfly is only nine to fourteen days, the change taking place must be terrific.

Never judge a book by its cover.

Read Full Post »

Hanging around

Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged , on September 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Captivated by this caterpillar business.

The scoreboard reads: four monarch caterpillars in chrysalis, one almost there, and one still prowling for milkweed.

Surprise at the utter disappearance of large caterpillars into small, almost gossamer slippers has given way to respect for the implacable stillness of a caterpillar awaiting its event horizon – the moments when its final immature form is shed  for a sheath of chrysalis and future life.

Awaiting that transformation,  a monarch caterpillar hangs upside down from its hind feet,  head rounded  up, looking very much like a “J.”  Formerly robust activity is forgotten, inquisitive tentacles droop.  Though caterpillar form is still present – whatever it was,  is gone.  Interiority.  Lost within itself – literally.

I wonder if eyes still see its passing world. Even without choice, I wonder about courage.

The environment and its larval caterpillar form delivered it to this moment.  The ending of this form, the shedding of its skin will occur within the next 24 hours, and then it too – like Mr. Saturday Night – will be gone.

Birth, life, recognition of outmoded ways, liminal stillness awaiting the numinous.  The life of a caterpillar.

Read Full Post »

Autumn’s Way

Posted in Nature, tagged , on September 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »

This morning I paused at my son’s school to look eastward. The sun rose, a butter yellow disk through lifting fog.

Partial wetlands blanket the school campus and a tributary runs directly beneath a light walking bridge to the school. Slimmed by meager rain, the stream itself wandered between burgeoning banks of seasoned flora – echinacea, aged goldenrod, grasses, stream loving plants.

From the bridge, such colours – deep browns, licks of purple, gold, red, green, grey, chartreuse, puffy, stiff, dispersed seedheads of every kind – an autumnal cloak the likes of which I have never seen. To hold, to wear such a thing, to be a plant among such company, a sensuality far beyond a crisp summer day.  A  fine mist blurred the colours, just as age blurs my own eyes.

Later I spoke with the school secretary, mentioning the autumn finery — she spoke exuberantly about trees just hinting of the show to come.  In time – yes, the trees will seem gaudy next to their shorter competition  — but for now, my attention is to the ground, the carpet of cooling, pooling, passionate colours that lay as gifts around my feet.

Read Full Post »

Ahead

Posted in Nature on September 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Waxing in the western sky, preternaturally large, the moon is dusty autumn gold.

Ahead, it peeks beyond a horizon I cannot.

Ambassador in earthshine, to what the solar world will bring.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »