Ospreys as distraction.

Bird Photography, Nature, Poetry, Politics
Jul 8, 2022
3 Comments

A perceptive friend remarked that I have been offering much contemplation on nature when not writing about the larger art projects across the last months. It is true, I have been using nature to distract myself from politics, the relentless onslaught of bad news, piling up like yesterday’s clouds, pictured below.

So it was yesterday when I hung out with a number of ospreys. Or so it was supposed to be. Alas, the politics refused to leave my head. While the birds circled, hunted, tended to their brood, I thought about how the accumulation of shootings not only numbs us, but makes the average citizen more eager for strongman or authoritarian protection. The repeated shocks drive the last ones away from our attention, to be replaced by the newest massacre.

Remember the supermarket shooting in Buffalo, mid-May? The school shooting in Uvalde, some weeks back, now Highland Park during the 4th of July parade? So far, in the U.S. this year, we have had 322 mass shootings, (defined as 4 or more dead, excluding the wounded.)

And then this:

” the shootings were “designed” to get Republicans to support gun restrictions. Here’s what I have to say. I mean. Two shootings on July 4: one in a rich white neighborhood and the other at a fireworks display. It almost sounds like it’s designed to persuade Republicans to go along with more gun control. I mean, after all, we didn’t see that happen at all the pride parades in the month of June,” Greene said.

“But as soon as we hit the MAGA month,” she continued, “as soon as we hit the month that we’re all celebrating, loving our country, we have shootings on July 4. I mean, that’s … oh, you know, that would sound like a conspiracy theory, right?”

So spouts Congress woman Marjorie Taylor Greene, conveniently forgetting that just a few years back 49 people were killed at an Orlando gay bar. This month police in Idaho foiled an attack by affiliates of a white supremacist group on a Pride celebration in a park. A scooting scare at the SF Pride Parade sent the crowd running (evidence was not found.)

And then there was the Las Vegas shooting in 2017, that killed 60 people and wounded over 400. At a music festival, not during “MAGA” month….

Kathy Fish wrote her most widely anthologized piece to date in response to that murderous act.

“It was first published in Jellyfish Review. It was then chosen by Sheila Heti for Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018 and by Aimee Bender forBest Small Fictions 2018. Variously described as a poem, flash fiction, prose poem, or flash essay/creative nonfiction, this hybrid piece has also been selected for Literature: A Portable Anthology (Macmillan), Stone Gathering: A Reader (French Press Editions), Humans in the Wild: Reactions to a Gun Loving Country (Swallow Publishing), Advanced Creative Nonfiction: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology, (Bloomsbury), and the newly released 15th edition of The Norton Reader (W. W. Norton).“

Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild

A group of grandmothers is a tapestry. A group of toddlers, a jubilance (see also: abewailing). A group of librarians is an enlightenment. A group of visual artists is a bioluminescence. A group of short story writers is a Flannery. A group of musicians is — a band.

A resplendence of poets.

A beacon of scientists.

A raft of social workers.

A group of first responders is a valiance. A group of peaceful protestors is a dream. A group of special education teachers is a transcendence. A group of neonatal ICU nurses is a divinity. A group of hospice workers, a grace.

Humans in the wild, gathered and feeling good, previously an exhilaration, now: a target.

A target of concert-goers.

A target of movie-goers.

A target of dancers.

A group of schoolchildren is a target.

by Kathy Fish

I have no use for conspiracy theories, from any faction. The facts speak for themselves. The number of available guns needs to be reduced. Gun laws need to be reformed, waiting periods initiated, background checks performed. Large capacity magazines need to be prohibited. Politicians need to be prevented from benefiting from lobbyists’ largesse. As long as we do not acknowledge these facts, children remain targets. Or their parents. Or anyone else in the fabric of things.

Come on ospreys, do your thing. Distract me.

Here is a beautiful album that might do the trick.

Drying Out

The sun was out. The sky was blue. Puffy white clouds. Miracle of miracles, after these endless rains, the cold, a May more like February. Yesterday was a promise of better times.

And everyone, I mean everyone, was out drying their plumage, preening, soaking up some warmth.

The herons opened their wings to the sun rays, or flying low in a bit of a breeze.

The Bullock’s Oriole (says my bird book) competed with the golden light around it, more interested in getting the gnats out of its feathers than watching the busy swallows right above it.

And the turtles?

Lined up in a row, late comers trying to score a place as well, not too successfully.

Mothers and offspring sharing a log.

Heads stretched up high, opening wet folds, drying out.

Before we get too excited with all those harbingers of better times ahead, let’s be pragmatic. The rains will reappear in the not too distant future, says the weatherman. Good for our parched state, bad for our mood. Lets not be like the theoretic turtle – let’s follow canine advice: work around it and all other nuisances…

The Theoretic Turtle

The theoretic turtle started out to see the toad;
He came to a stop at a liberty-pole in the middle of the road.
“Now how, in the name of the spouting whale,” the indignant turtle cried,
“Can I climb this perpendicular cliff and get on the other side?
If I only could make a big balloon I’d lightly over it fly;
Or a very long ladder might reach the top though it does look fearfully high.
If a beaver were in my place, he’d gnaw a passage through with his teeth;
I can’t do that but I can dig a tunnel and pass beneath.”
He was digging his tunnel with might and main, when a dog looked down at the hole.
“The easiest way, my friend,” said he, “is to walk around the pole.”

by Amos Russel Wells (1862 – 1933)

Numbers, anyone?

Want to come for a walk? Amble through wet meadows and woods where even the air takes on a green sheen?

Hawthorne, elderberry and ash trees

Where the sun has halos in those 5 minutes it agrees to come out of the clouds, before the showers return?

I walked along the Columbia river on Sauvie Island, so high with all the precipitation that the trees on the shores were submerged.

I approached the Willamette slough, where the pelicans rested until a fledging eagle chased them, descending from the perch where s/he had hung out with the parents.

I spotted yellow – the gold finches,

the yellow warblers,

and the Western Tanagers, not shy at all and in remarkable numbers.

It made me think of numbers, and how they have to be seen in context.

In this week you likely saw the announcement of the horrific milestone that the US had now suffered, one million deaths. Perhaps you didn’t see the reports, that by some estimates 300.000 of this people would likely have survived if they had been vaccinated. The anti-vaxx movement, of course, is fueled by many influences, but one influence seems to be underemphasized.

Rufus Towhee

There is a classic statement by CP Snow, still relevant now.

“A good many times I have been present at gathering of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold, it was also negative. Yet I was asking something that is the scientific equivalent of: have you read a work of Shakespeare’s? I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question – such as, what do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, can you read? – not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language.”

Snow’s concern was not specifically with scientific illiteracy. Instead, the concern was that people find it genuinely acceptable, and in some circles a point of pride, to have no understanding of science or math. Many times, I have heard people say with defiance: I don’t do math.”

The problem here is not ignorance about differential equations. The problem is revealed when we look at examples in which extraordinarily simple mathematical concepts change enormously how you think about central issues.

Pink Hawthorne

As an example, why are people not taking Covid seriously? Let us imagine, that the one million who died had a social circle of 30 people each. That means 30 million Americans have had direct contact with a Covid death. But now consider that approximately 85 million people have been infected in the US. If each of those has a circle of 30, then the vast majority of the country does know someone (or many) directly who did ok, but does not know anyone directly who died. Is it any wonder then, that vast numbers of Americans buy crazy claims like this is just a strong version of the flu — because that is the pattern of their lived experience, which outweighs dry numbers any old time.

Two Daddy Longlegs making more Daddy Longlegs

Totally different example: In the Pacific NW the Northern spotted owl may well go extinct. The most recent threat is from competition with a different species of owl, the barred owl. In a desperate response, the government has been killing barred owls in specified regions to open territory for the Northern spotted. So far, it looks like killing 2400 barred owls across ten years allowed the Northern spotted owls in those territories to survive. In places where the barred owls were left alone, the Northern spotted experienced serious decline, increasing the danger of complete extinction. You may still find this preservation strategy unacceptable, but, when you ask about costs and benefits, you might take into account that the barred owl is extremely common and thriving. The Northern spotted owl could be wiped out. So would you be willing to sacrifice, let’s say, 2% of one species in order to gain, let’s say, a 20 or 30% increase in another? These are not the real numbers, and the research is not clear yet on what the absolute numbers are. But surely the question takes on a different coloration if you look at the number of owls in the denominator.

Vultures were out en masse

One more example with a very simple character: many jurisdictions have just gone through elections, and a prominent argument from the right is that we need to do more to combat the crime wave that is ongoing in our country. The evidence for this crime wave is visible to anyone who even glances at the headlines. The problem, however, is that this is a ridiculous way to gauge crime rates. Recent data confirm that crime rates in Oregon have actually gone down (however minimally), rather than up for the last interval tested (2020.)

If we are trying to persuade people to take Covid seriously, we need to be aware of their lived experience, and that understanding has to be shaped by simple calculations I have sketched here. We may disagree about owl protection policies, but in thinking it through we have to be alert to proportions, rather than raw numbers, and in thinking about crime rates, our votes and our tax $$ should be guided by real numbers, not scare stories. Since people proudly say “I don’t care about numbers,” they rely instead on short cuts that routinely give them answers miles off of what they’d get if they spent 2 minutes thinking about the numbers. It won’t end well.

My walk ended with the resident scrub jay, who always hangs out around the parking lot. So did a ranger from the park service or whatever official administrative body. Talk about numbers in context: they had found a single gypsy moth threat in 2020 on the island, none last year. Here she was spending a full day hanging dozens of traps for these pests on the trees, and that was just the beginning. If you can’t control the moths when you still have a chance with small populations, the trees are doomed. Wish the CDC acted the same…

Expect to see small green bags dotting the island. Likely too many to count.

I am taking next week off to have some down time. See you soon after that. You can count the days!

Music is by Bartok today – he included math, in particular expressions of the Fibonacci numbers, in many of his sonatas.

Band-Tailed Pigeons

They are sitting in front of my window, courting, day after day. Sometimes they come as a small flock, sometimes just the two of them, she more cautious, reserved, but eventually joining him at the bird bath. We used to put seeds out, but that attracted too many squirrels onto the balcony.

These birds have been struggling, over-hunted, numbers slowly picking up for a while, now declining again. They eat berries, love to hang out in the Hawthorne and munch, sitting upright. I wave to them, they blink at me, unperturbed. Leaving as suddenly as they appeared.

Two Pigeons

BY MARY JO SALTER

They’ve perched for hours
on that window-ledge, scarcely
moving. Beak to beak,

a matched set, they differ
almost imperceptibly—
like salt and pepper shakers.

It’s an event when they tuck
(simultaneously) their pinpoint
heads into lavender vests

of fat. But reminiscent
of clock hands blandly
turning because they must

have turned—somehow, they’ve
taken on the grave,
small-eyed aspect of monks

hooded in conferences
so intimate nothing need
be said. If some are chuckling

in the park, earning
their bread, these are content
to let the dark engulf them—

it’s all the human
imagination can fathom,
how single-mindedly

mindless two silhouettes
stand in a window thick
as milk glass. They appear

never to have fed on
anything else when they stir
all of a sudden to peck

savagely, for love
or hygiene, at the grimy
feathers of the other;

but when they resume
their places, the shift
is one only a painter

or a barber (prodding a chin
back into position)
would be likely to notice.

Source: Henry Purcell in Japan (1984)

And all this to play today’s music, since Antonín Dvořák fits my mood these days…..

Get a Grip, Heuer!

Originally, I meant to write about my Trouble with Change. I decided to get a grip instead – let me explain.

Columbia River, looking East

Two of my regular haunts, the Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Preserve in WA, and parts of the Tualatin River National Wildlife Preserve south of Portland closed a while ago for considerable amounts of time, 3 and 1.5 years respectively, to restructure the landscape, reconnecting the rivers with floodplains. Altogether important environmental improvements, with me (and others) moping about years of lost access even while acknowledging the need, and now celebrating the re-opening.

Restored flood plain and lake, respectively

When I first learned about the closures in 2019, I was upset that everything changes, even landscapes, usually reliable points of constancy. In fact, hiking through both preserves this week, I was again sad about some paths no longer accessible, while others were rerouted and still bore signs of human construction and interference, which will soon disappear, I guess.

Harrier Hawk

I consider myself a person pretty open to change, even if it is not always chosen by myself. I have lived through and adapted to major changes, the types of environments I lived in, from small rural German village-life to years in metropoles like New York City, the languages I have spoken, careers that came and went, constellations within my household, rise and decline of friendships and last, but not least, changing capacities of an ailing body. All taken, with the exception of short interims of sadness or agitation, in stride. So why is the change in the faces of familiar landscapes such an issue? You tell me.

Herded goslings and flock of lesser yellowlegs, I think

Plain old ducks

It makes me embarrassed. Almost ashamed, given the intense demands for adaptation to change required by the many refugees in this war- and misery-torn world of 2022. Think about the psychological burdens for any given refugee, with Ukraine of course holding a special place in my consciousness right now. The trauma load often consists of the pre-flight part, where violent events, threat to life or loss of loved ones and destruction of home are experienced. Then the flight itself whether under a carpet of bombing, or across ocean with unstable boats, drowning in the Mediterranean, burning to death in dry Greek island camps or freezing to death at closed Polish borders, you name it. Then the arrival in the host country, which reacts to despondency with varying degrees of helpfulness, often dependent on the color of your skin, the (dis)similarity of religious and cultural practices, your ability to speak or learn the language and degree of prior education.

Northern flicker, joined by swallows

Add to this forms of survivor guilt, that you escape a dreaded fate that others didn’t (think of the large number of Afghans who were left behind by those who were allowed to flee,) the separation of family units (men not allowed to leave their country of origin, for example, to be recruited) and the complete loss of trust when your very own friends and neighbors became the enemy who killed you and yours (think Bosnia, for example,) or refused to believe the reality of your plight (your Russian family not accepting that war occurs in Ukraine.) It is no surprise, then, that studies indicate that depression and anxiety are at least as common as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)and suggest that one or a combination of these conditions affects at least one in three refugees. (Ref.) One in three…

Turtles

Of course there are exceptions – here is a well-told story of a Syrian refugee in Germany whose intelligence, achievement orientation and a good portion of luck enabled successful adaption despite cultural and bureaucratic obstacles. Here is a thoughtful document for professionals how to help children through the acculturation process that speaks to a larger, more general need and seems to have been successful. (Source is Canadian, the only thing I could find in English.)

Blue herons roosting

In any case: the burden of required change while under psychological duress, or even traumatized, is immense.

My own reaction to changes in nature should be nothing but endless gratitude for what I have and what I’m spared. Duly noted. Grip gotten.

Common yellow throat

Yellow-rumped warbler (Butter butt!)

Music today is a favorite cello concerto. War horse, I know, doesn’t make it less beautiful.

And here is someone waiting for the mosquitoes to enter his beak:

Red-winged blackbird

Who will find Meaning?

Today I want to draw your attention to a superb essay, in ever so many ways. It describes both, the exploration of some churches in a particular neighborhood of Portland, Ladd’s Addition, and also a secular pilgrimage in search of something larger, deeper than ourselves by a man who has left traditional churchgoing long behind. The author, David Oates, lives here in Portland. His latest book, The Mountains of Paris – How Awe and Wonder Rewrote my Life won the 2021 Eric Hoffer Award and was also a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. I have not yet read it, another item in the growing pile of nature-related writing on my nightstand.

The linked essay is longish (hey, weekend is coming up!), and made me grateful, once again, that healing exists from psychological wounds inflicted in childhood.

Grateful, too, that people don’t allow themselves to be cut off from things or themes associated with the hurt, when these offer independent source pf learning or grace.

Grateful, last but not least, that there are writers who can write about topics of spiritual meaning without being didactic, proselytizing, or worse, saccharine, in my ears, pairing wit with humility. As I said, a superb piece.

I was reading it while sitting in my chair at the window across the pear tree. This year’s addition to the garden has been a raised bed where we planted – oblivious to the snow and hail to come – the first rounds of peas, leeks and lettuce.

So far the squirrels are eating the lettuce, long yellow and flat from the cold snap. The finches and chickadees, on the other hand, have found the perfect source for nesting material – they are relentlessly pecking away at the twine that holds the bamboo stakes together, harvested from our hedge and rigged in a makeshift attempt to provide a structure for the climbing peas.

There they were, birds searching – and finding – essential necessities, their and their offsprings’ continued existence dependent on it. No meaning required. Just biologically ingrained task performance. Something, I suppose, somewhat similar for humans under existential threat – no time to waste in pursuit of higher-order concepts when survival is at stake. But if we have the luxury to pursue them, if we have the chance to find meaning, what a gift for cognitive creatures who cannot help themselves but asking about the nature of and reason for their existence since time immemorial.

We obviously long for some evidence that there is something out there beyond the mere facts of burdensome existence, something that could, perhaps, prove guidance or protection or allow us to bask in its reflected glory (made in the image of whatever deity…).

I always wonder what characterizes those who seem to be able to find it.

For my part, I believe that our existence has no more – and no less – meaning than that of the finches and chickadees. We are a coincidental by-product of an evolutionary process in a random universe. I strongly believe, though, that we can make meaning, live a meaningful live, by focusing on others rather than self, refuse to be bystanders, force ourselves to be witnesses and adopt an ethic that favors solidarity with those in need and contribute with whatever talents we possess.

Today’s music is about dancing unhatched chicks – I envision those bird eggs snug and warm in a bed of twine in their nest….

A Duck’s Tune

We started the week with Native American art and we will close with it too. LeAnne Howe (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) is the Eidson Distinguished Professor in American literature at the University of Georgia, who “connects literature, Indigenous knowledge, Native histories, and expressive cultures in her work.”

You can learn more about this brilliant poet here. Photographs are of fowl in action, busy in March.

A Duck’s Tune

BY LEANNE HOWE

Ya kut unta pishno ma*
Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma

So I moved to this place,
Iowa City, Ioway
Where green-headed mallards
walk the streets day and night,
and defecate on sidewalks.
Greasy meat bags in wetsuits,
disguise themselves as pets
and are free as birds.
Maybe Indians should have thought of that?

Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma

Maybe you would have
left us alone,
if we put on rubber bills,
and rubber feet,
Quacked instead of complained,
Swam instead of danced
waddled away when you did
what you did…

Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma

So I moved to the Place
The “Jewel of the Midwest”
Where ghosts of ourselves
Dance the sulphur trails.

Fumes emerge continuous
from the mouths of
Three-faced Deities who preach,
“We absolve joy through suffering.”

Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma

So I moved to this place where
in 1992, up washed Columbus again
like a pointy-chinned Son of Cannibals.
His spin doctors rewrite his successes
“After 500 years and 25 million dead,
One out of 100 American Indians commit suicide
One out of 10 American Indians are alcoholics
49 years is the average lifespan of American Indians.”

Each minute burns
the useful and useless alike
Sing Hallelujah
Praise the Lord

Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma

And when you foreigners
build your off-world colonies
and relocate in outer space
This is what we will do
We will dance,
We will dance,
We will dance
to a duck’s tune.

Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma
Ya kut unta pishno ma

Notes:

* This is a dance refrain for a song. The phrase is to be performed. Ya kut unta pishno ma means “We were doing this.” Dancing.LeAnne Howe, “A Duck’s Tune” from Evidence of Red. Copyright © 2005 by LeAnne Howe.

The geese had their say too – likely to dance to a celebratory tune as well once we have left to destroy the next planet or civilization….

Music today is all kind of birdsongs with accompaniment – no quacking allowed.

Strange Birds, and some familiar ones.

Time for a walk, along the edges of the ponds. Intensely blue sky yesterday, hints of greenery emerging, some swans still hesitating to fly further North.

The reeds caught my eye, swaying in the water.

Raptors hanging out, enjoying a bit of spring in the air.

Just birdsong today, not much text. I’m tired from so much writing last week.

The sounds are from an album by the Bowerbird Collective that topped the Australian charts after its release last December.

I have never been to Australia, don’t know the birds.

Just thought it is such a clever idea to raise our consciousness about needs for preservation by recording all this beautiful sound.

Which reminds me, here is some sound with human instruments, but speaking to the same goal.

If there’s still time. The book that explains it all can be found here.

And here is “Verse 2” of Bulu Line, Aboriginal George Dyuŋgayan’s rhyming tercet — “guwararrirarri yinanydina / dyidi yarrabanydyina / nanbalinblai yinanydina” —translated by Stuart Cooke into twenty lines describing the courtship flight of snipes, whose feather vibrations in the slipstream produce a throbbing sound known as “drumming,” as in this sample:

No snipes to be seen here. All I heard yesterday was the buzzing of the geese wings. The song of red-winged blackbirds. Some quacking ducks. It was enough.

Oh, evolution, you botched this!

Don the down-coat. Pack the parka. Meet the early morning mist.

If you are lucky – and I was early Monday morning – you’ll see some wispy clouds evaporate over the water, hear the different birdcalls and have the wetlands practically to yourself.

Well, the birds were naturally on location. Pretty active, too, fighting the lingering cold and scoring on breakfast. Red-tailed hawk preening…

The diffuse light blocked out the harshness of the world and gave rise to thoughts about peace against the backdrop of war.

And talking about war and peace, have you ever considered why so few birds are equipped with weapons? I mean, snakes have fangs, tigers have teeth, elephants, narwhales and walruses have tusks, deer have antlers, bees have stingers – a whole arsenal of martial gear can be found in nature. The occasional evening spent in front of PBS’s NOVA programs about animal warfare confirms this.

Scientists have devoted their lives to figuring out the evolutionary pressure behind this all, notably Douglas Emlen, who wrote one of the best overviews in the field, Animal Weapons, the Evolution of Battle. Here is a short review of the book which includes this:

“Throughout the book, Emlen’s demonstrations of the many parallels between human and animal weapons are fascinating, even when the possibilities are frightening. “I stand awed and shaken,” he writes, “thrilled by the parallels and, at the same time, terrified by the prospects.”

Back to birds, though, who have not participated in the arms race. The reason? They practically get all they want or need by flashing colors, elaborate dancing, song competition and only occasional claws, pecking or spores. (I’m summarizing what I read here.)

The REAL reason? Flight. Anything that flies has to worry about weight. Flying consumes much more energy than movement on the ground or in water, and energy need increases with added weight, even tiny bits. We have indeed mathematical models of flight that spell out in detail how leg or wing spurs, no matter how small, increase fuel cost in untenable ways (given that fuel acquisition itself – searching for food – costs energy as well,) particularly for smaller birds.

(A funky comparison from the article: United Airlines started printing its inflight magazine on lighter paper to reduce the weight of a typical flight by about 11 pounds, or 0.01% of an airplane’s empty weight. Through this tiny decrease, the company cut its annual fuel use by 170,000 gallons, saving US$290,000 yearly. Think through this with today’s news about gas prices….)

Spurs, then, are primarily found on land fowl and in fewer than 2% of all avian species. And beaks used for fighting are rare as well, given that any injury to them might compromise the ability to feed – a direct threat to survival. Yes, some raptors fight with their talons, but overall, we are seeing a peaceable kingdom, if interrupted by screaming matches over territorial rights..

Evolution, you botched this. Should have provided mankind with wings!!

Swallows already returned, harbingers of renewal.

Killdeer twittered.

Hummingbird glowed.

The morning softness continued, sun broke through clouds.

Later the rain set in. What better reminder of “teaching our troubled souls… to heal.”

To the Rain

BY URSULA K. LE GUIN

Mother rain, manifold, measureless,
falling on fallow, on field and forest,
on house-roof, low hovel, high tower,
downwelling waters all-washing, wider
than cities, softer than sisterhood, vaster
than countrysides, calming, recalling:
return to us, teaching our troubled
souls in your ceaseless descent
to fall, to be fellow, to feel to the root,
to sink in, to heal, to sweeten the sea.

“To the Rain” copyright © 2018 by Ursula K. Le Guin. First appeared in So Far So Good: Poems 2014-2018, published by Copper Canyon Press in 2018. Reprinted in Poetry Foundation by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

Brahm’s Rain Sonata is today’s musical joy.

Perception of Time

Bird Photography, Classical Music, Movies, Poetry
Feb 9, 2022
4 Comments

Today’s post is dedicated to my grandfather Eduard (1894 – 1977) a musician, bird lover and gentle soul. His birthday was yesterday.

Buckle up folks, it’s going to be all over the map today.

It all started with a reminder notice that one of the strangest pieces of music, John Cage’s ORGAN2/ASLSP –As SLow aS Possible – was about to change to a different tone on February 5, 2022. The longest composition ever – duration 639 years, you read that right – started in 2001, with a seventeen month-long pause before the first tone of the organ, especially built for the performance of this piece, was to be heard. Here is a video clip that shows the special organ in a small church in Halberstadt, Germany.

One particular tone emanates continually, and is changed at irregular time intervals according to the composer’s instructions. (Here is a calendar that shows the me changes and tone variations.) The current sound will last 2 years. This announcement had me wonder:

While we had to wait for more than 6 long years for the 14. sound change in 2020 , the next one is occurring only a few months hence, on February 5th. Quite a challenge for a subjective sense of time to get the hang of this. For those clinging to their subjective sense of time we might mention that the new sound will last exactly 24 months. Could very well be that those months will pass in a flash.

Honestly, I could not tell if this was meant seriously or ironically – probably a combination of my addled brain and being German. But be that as it may, it reminded me of a dominant topic in my current conversations. How is our sense of time shaped by the pandemic, the isolation, the sameness of the days and, admittedly, by aging?

Snowgeese from other years

Cage’s composition was not the only reminder of the languid, unending spread of hours and days that I – many of us – feel, like time stalling. (This stands, of course, in extreme contrast to young families for whom the double burden of professional work and unrelieved childcare at home leads to a sense of having not enough time ever, time on 3x speed fast forward.)

One of the best cinematic experiences I’ve had in these last months also managed to capture a sense of time that is altered, aided by the elongated storytelling formats of TV series—those time-indulgent, episodic ways to weave a tale, unhurried by a two-hour time limit of movies. And no one knows how to unfold a plot in slow-mo better than the modern Korean film makers.

Steller’s Jay yesterday – Grey herons from other years

In Beyond Evil (directed by Shim Na-yeon, available on Netflix) it’s not just about the tempo of the narrative, though. Time itself seems to stand still in a small town haunted by age-old murders and secrets, with an unlikely coupling of 2 unmatched policemen churning the dregs and bringing new sorrow. It is not a serial murder case in the traditional sense, but rather a psychological study of a variety of characters stuck in time as flies are on those strips hanging in country kitchens. The protagonists are honing their compulsions, tending to their losses, and deciding what to sacrifice to remain on the ethical side of things. I know, does not sound enticing, but honestly, it was brilliant.

Sandhill cranes from other years

So, I thought, perhaps we should delve into the scientific psychology of time perception, since a lot of research has happened in the field lately. Nah, you can read up on it here. I much rather learn from poets than deal with my own field today.

Both of the poems below managed to drag me away from moping about the altered sense of time’s passing, the feeling of being hermetically closed off from a perception of forward movement. They helped me, pushed me towards remembering what I sort of know but always forget: what matters is attention to the moment, the noticing and processing of what is afforded to you by grace of nature or the kindness of others or the tasks that give you pleasure or a sense of having something gotten done or the simple acknowledgment you’re still functioning reasonably.

Baldies from other years

With Forever- is composed of Nows – Emily Dickinson celebrates recurrence, sameness, un-differentiation, all the while she spent her life in something akin to self-imposed lockdown.

Hummingbird (in February!) from yesterday

Seems like good advice. I figured I’d drag a series of “nows” out of the archives, selecting samples of the last 5 years of early February photographs all taken without travel, in my immediate vicinity (2021 excluded since it was spent in hospital…) The same ducks and geese, sandhill cranes and variety of raptors, the same small folk and an occasional outlier (elk!) thrown in – a forever of joy from repeat excursions, the last one just yesterday afternoon. It helps to live in Oregon, one of the most beautiful places imaginable.

Elk from other years

You can slow down time as much as you want, if you ask me, if it still contains the possibility of momentary encounters, anchoring us in the NOW. Even robins, bushtits, woodpeckers and sparrows in the yard suffice.

Robin and Bushtit from other years

Forever – is composed of Nows –

BY EMILY DICKINSON

Forever – is composed of Nows –
‘Tis not a different time –
Except for Infiniteness –
And Latitude of Home –

From this – experienced Here –
Remove the Dates – to These –
Let Months dissolve in further Months –
And Years – exhale in Years –

Without Debate – or Pause –
Or Celebrated Days –
No different Our Years would be
From Anno Dominies –

With Clocks, Carl Sandburg extends a warning that a focus on the measurement of time can distract us from using or enjoying the one we still have, since we don’t know when time will be cut short for good. Don’t focus on the perception of passage then, but what you can do to fill time with. (Never mind that that opens another problem set during a pandemic…)

Clocks

by Carl Sandburg

HERE is a face that says half-past seven the same way whether a murder or a wedding goes on, whether a funeral or a picnic crowd passes.
A tall one I know at the end of a hallway broods in shadows and is watching booze eat out the insides of the man of the house; it has seen five hopes go in five years: one woman, one child, and three dreams.
A little one carried in a leather box by an actress rides with her to hotels and is under her pillow in a sleeping-car between one-night stands.
One hoists a phiz over a railroad station; it points numbers to people a quarter-mile away who believe it when other clocks fail.
And of course … there are wrist watches over the pulses of airmen eager to go to France…

Sparrows from other years

And for good measure, let’s throw in the advice of Vietnamese Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh who died last month:

“While washing the dishes one should only be washing the dishes, which means that while washing the dishes one should be completely aware of the fact that one is washing the dishes.” Why? If we are thinking about the past or future, “we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes.” (from The Miracle of Mindfulness.)

Told you, it would be all over the map. Off to wash the dishes now.

Sandhill from yesterday. Music today in honor of my Opa who played the stand-up bass in a small-town orchestra named Fidelio. Here is a creative – and timely – version by the Washington National Opera of Beethoven’s Fidelio, with an explanation of how the new version came to be. Fidelio is a story of hope and resilience, a more desirable focus than speed of time…..

YDP – your daily picture

Filter by Category : Tag : Date

YDP – your daily picture

Filter by Category : Tag : Date

YDP – your daily picture

Filter by Category : Tag : Date

Bird Photography

Ospreys as distraction.

Drying Out

The Theoretic Turtle

Numbers, anyone?

Band-Tailed Pigeons

Two Pigeons

Get a Grip, Heuer!

Who will find Meaning?

A Duck’s Tune

A Duck’s Tune

Strange Birds, and some familiar ones.

Oh, evolution, you botched this!

To the Rain

Perception of Time

Forever – is composed of Nows –