Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,– While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Written September 19, 1819; first published in 1820. This poem is in the public domain.
And here is, in addition to the bounty, to the wistfulness of October…..
Peak foliage color is later this year than what used to be the norm. The rise in average temperatures affects this process of nature as well. Not only is the onset of color change delayed, but the colors themselves are changing – the intense oranges and reds of autumn will become more and more rare, giving way to muted yellows and browns.
I learned this from an article about interactive maps that point travelers to where to go for the best colors at any given moment in time, something I had been curious about. It is, to put it mildly, dispiriting when you try and read up on nature and can’t avoid bad news even with the simple inquiry about the timing of fall colors….
So let’s balance that out with some good news, at least for us here in town. Last year’s Lenny Bernstein craze around the centennial of his birth led to an explosion of Bernstein-related musical programs but also a traveling exhibition about the composer/ conductor’s life curated by the GRAMMY museum. After previously having been shown at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Skirball Cultural Center, and the New England Conservatory, among others, it has now reached its 9th stop: the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.
OJMCHE will have the exhibit of 150 artifacts on display until early January, but, importantly, will augment what’s there to see with some promising events linked to the show. Among others, there will be a story swap between musicians from a variety of genres, reaching from classical music to ska-punk. 45th Parallel will offer two concerts of Bernstein’s chamber music at the museum. Fall might be colorful, after all, if only in musical modulation.
What’s likely not covered in the exhibit (I have yet to visit) are the less public and darker aspects of the maestro’s life. A short and sensitive summary can be found here.
For music it shall be a symphony often connected to autumnal moods: Brahm’s No.4 in E minor. Conducted by Bernstein, of course.
Animals have a great advantage over man: they never hear the clock strike, however intelligent they may be; they die without any idea of death; they have no theologians to instruct them…Their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and often objectionable ceremonies; it costs them nothing to be buried; no one starts lawsuits over their wills.
—Voltaire
Who can say what cows feel, when they surround and stare intently on a dying or dead companion?
—Charles Darwin
It was the last day before the cows would be herded to different grazing grounds. Hunting season begins October 1st, and they have to be out of the way. It was thus also the last day for a walk around this particular area of Sauvie Island. From now until April 1st hikes are severely restricted.
I have no clue what cows feel. Does the possibility of not knowing about death outweigh the burden of not knowing that pain ends, either? Be it the fleeting pain that you and I know will be gone either by passage of time or the next dose of Ibuprofen? Or the chronic pain that we know will end with the loss of our current consciousness?
I have also always wondered about the fact that cows look at you. Ever noticed? Other animals out in the open might strike you with an evaluative glance before they decide to scurry to safety. Maybe your domesticated friends look at you when they want food, a walk or are simply bored or proud to show off a trick – but that prolonged stare of interest that you get from cows who don’t expect anything from you? It is puzzling.
Of course the premise that animals don’t know about death itself – still prevalent in the early 1970s, when anthropologist Ernest Becker wrote in his Pulitzer Prize–winning book Denial of Death that nonhuman animals know nothing about dying: “The knowledge of death is reflective and conceptual, and animals are spared it” – is questionable. Scientists now believe that at least some species recognize the special nature of death, elephants and chimpanzees among them. There is certainly some form of grieving in evidence, when loss occurs.
*
You might wonder why the theme of death pops up a second day in a row: it is the season in the Jewish calendar where thoughts of life and death (as well as our personal behavior and responsibility for our actions) is writ large. The days between the New Year and the Day of Atonement are meant to be days of contemplation, days of fear of punishment but also of hope that repentance and change is possible and able to avert divine retribution. The core of the message – independent of religious belief – speaks to me: annual re-assessment of our own moral compass and conscious decisions to try to do better is a valuable thing.
The poem that is recited on the High Holidays, the Un’taneh tokef, captures it aptly, with looming threats and the possibility of getting it to the point.
Here is an excerpt:
Let us now relate the power of this day’s holiness, for it is awesome and frightening. …….All mankind will pass before You like a flock of sheep. Like a shepherd pasturing his flock, making sheep pass under his staff, so shall You cause to pass, count, calculate, and consider the soul of all the living; and You shall apportion the destinies of all Your creatures and inscribe their verdict.
On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed – how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword and who by beast, who by famine and who by thirst, who by upheaval and who by plague, who by strangling and who by stoning. Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquility and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted. But Repentance, Prayer, and Charity annul the severe Decree.
Time to regroup and visit my regular landscapes where fall has made such a sudden entrance.
My first foray into nature this week was inspired by having my body and my mind fed by two beloved friends: a mushroom soup to die for, last month, and a book recommendation last week, added to the mile-high pile of books to read: Long Litt Woon’s The Way through the Woods – on Mushrooms and Mourning.
It is a widow’s description of working through her bereavement after the sudden and untimely death of her husband by becoming an authority on mushrooms; I cannot wait to read the book which received rave reviews – the anthropologist is said to be able to explore both the world of mushrooms (a somewhat random subject matter that helped focus attention) and the emotional travels through recovering from grief with passions and humor in equal parts.
Perfect timing, too, given that mushrooms are sprouting everywhere right now, with the dampness acting as catalyst to their emergence. All the photographs (some with iPhone, some with camera) were taken in the woods in an approximate one mile radius from my house within the last 8 days. Jealous yet?
And time for some amusement as well! It arrived when I went on a hunt for the appropriate music. The first thing that came up when typing in music for mushrooms was an article titled Science says this playlist is a must listen when tripping on mushrooms. Rest assured, that is not the activity I had in mind.
“Science” turns out to be one researcher who specializes in psilocybin experimentation and therapy. Psychologist Bill Richards, Ph.D., a researcher at Roland Griffiths’s lab at Johns Hopkins University and an expert in the field of hallucinogens claims to have the perfect playlist for those using (magic) mushrooms outside of mushroom soup or other culinary apparitions.
And I quote:
“…the order of songs is vital in crafting the right atmosphere, specifically during the “onset, peak, and post-peak phases”. The onset music should “supportive, unfolding, forward-moving”, like H.R. Reynolds’ arrangement of “O Magnum Mysterium”and Edward Elgar’s “Nimrod”. But once the peak sets in, things need to slow down a bit.
“At a trip’s peak, music becomes a mirror of transcendental forms of consciousness that may not even be registered in unitive awareness, but is present if needed—like a net below a trapeze artist,” Richards says. This cocktail includes multiple inclusions from classical luminaries like Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart, along with a few dashes from other composers from a variety of cultures.
As the trip’s effects begin to wear off, the playlist can enter a more free-form state, tagging in tracks that are more familiar and sources of positivity and inspiration to the consumer. Interestingly enough, it’s also at this very end that lyrics really make their first appearance, and there’s good reason for their absence.”
Brahms as a net below a trapeze tripper? Beethoven, the security blanket? Bach, catcher of the fall? Okayyyyy….. And where are the Russian composers, their cuisine so dependent on all things fungal? No slavic mycelium dreams?
Let’s hope the scientific research on magic mushrooms is not an echo of the musical recommendations. It is certainly sprouting in the most unexpected places – just like mushrooms – lately in Jamaica, where a Canadian start-up is trying to study everything from the genetics of magic mushrooms to how best to extract their psychedelic compounds. These goals have both scientific and financial value. And there is sure competition around: Johns Hopkins just received a multi-million dollar donation to fund psychedelic research. Part of the research is devoted to figure out if psilocybin works as a treatment for a panoply of disorders and conditions: anorexia, opioid addiction, Alzheimer’s, chronic Lyme disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, and alcohol addiction.
I will, however, not be a participant in studies at the new Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research……I like my brain the way it is. A champion of champignons, at times morose like a morel, inclined to trifle with truffles, a brain as mucilaginous as a mushroom cap!
What I couldn’t say in the article, I can say on my own blog: if you want to support the organization and send them a small birthday present, go here:https://streetroots.org/support
And here is a good way to end the week (Lars Vogt the pianist just had a new album out of Mozart Sonatas to rave reviews)
“Give it a rest,” screamed my shoulder this weekend,”after a day of photographing art you should put the camera down. Nature can wait!”
I couldn’t – the wondrous landscape around me begged to be documented, for the 100th time that I’ve walked these hillsides. And also, there is always Ibuprofen…
The essay attached all the way below points to something that we should keep in mind, though: finding succor in the beauty of our surrounds should not be reserved for the awe-inspiring vistas. We should also attend to things that are small, or familiar, or habitually by-passed.
Poore’s essay riffs off Annie Dillard’s question: How blind are we? How resistant to wonder have we made ourselves, and how unaccommodating of the universe’s gifts? As Dillard phrases it: “Who gets excited by a mere penny?”
She goes on to distinguish between environmental conservation’s focus on wilderness, prized environments in distant regions, instead of applying efforts to protect what we have in our neighborhoods, on a small scale. Your garden, my yard, this little city park. The need for being astute observers rather than starry-eyed adventurers, as she puts it.
The Columbia Gorge in today’s photographs is, of course, full of grandeur, as are the views of Mt. Adams at sunset – all experienced on Saturday. But as you know, if you’ve followed my stories, I can get just as enthusiastic about the bees in my garden, or the little birds in Eastern Oregon.
From my Denizens of Climate Change series, (2017)
I truly believe it will make us better environmental stewards.
In the end, I dropped the camera after all – the sight of this mouse-catcher who appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the meadow made me laugh so hard I could not longer photograph. Shoulder was happy.
Music today is a 1943 orchestral concerto by Bela Bartok, who stayed pretty close to the ground as well, incorporating quotidian folk tunes.
In desperate need for some calming vibes I went for a long walk along the Columbia river on Sunday. Want to join me to listen to what nature had to offer, again? And again? And again?
A leaden, quiet sky. Brain starts calming.
Shshhhh, said the heron, or I’ll stick out my tongue.
Shshhhh, said the nutria, need to get going…
Shshhhh, said the frogs, we are preparing for a concert
Shshhhh, said the thistles, we are listening to the wind
Shshhhh, said the shrub jay, I’m trying to focus on the berries
Shshhhh said the Kestrel, you’ll scare away the bugs
Shshhhhh said the grasshopers, we’re trying to hide
Shshhhhh said the butterfly, you don’ talk with your mouth full
Buzzzzzz said the bumblebee. There went my brain again…….
We used to call it a walk in the woods. Not exercising, just going out into nature. These days many refer to it as forest bathing. HUH?
The name might have changed, but the experience has not. If you attend closely to what the environment has to offer you develop a sense of connectedness to that environment.
The New York Botanical Garden, some years back, used a related approach, celebrating its 50 acre Old Growth Garden. They asked someone from the Poetry Society of America to engage those walking in the woods with real “seeing.” Poem Forest was the result.
Strategically placed lines from 2.500 years of poetry were to be read aloud, at locations that corresponded physically or conceptually to the poetry. You can find the images with the poetry lines in the article linked above. A simple way of slowing down and seeing. Maybe I should do something like this in Tryon Creek Park, the old growth paradise close to my house!
I was reminded of all this when I discovered a wooded corner of the Lewis&Clark campus yesterday, filled with little art pieces presumably left over from the students’ classes last year or during the summer. It made you stop and look, thinking about the intersection of art and nature. Gift of the day.
Here is yours: one of the best choirs in the world:
Out and about in Washington County, I saw signs at the side of the road advertising a Lilyflowerfest – “the only one West of the Mississippi River!”
It didn’t take a minute to turn my car around to explore what that could possibly entail. Off I was to Parry’s Tree Farm and Nursery, located at 45627 Northwest David Hill Road in Forest Grove. Well, let’s say outside of Forest Grove, into the hills, and eventually down a gravel road. When you’ve come that far, you don’t balk at the out-of-nowhere entrance fee either, small as it is at $3.
I also think balking would not have been physically possible, even if you wanted to, given the sensory overload that occupied all of your mental and physical processing gear within seconds.
The small farm devoted two areas sheltered by netting to the display and sale of over 20.000 garden tested day lilies, oriental lilies, asiatic lilies, tiger lilies, orienpet lilies and more.
It was a riot of color. It was also an abundance of fragrance, even though not all of the varieties shown do smell. And your ears were, shall we say, assaulted by elevator music of the harp and bells kind, loud enough to interfere with thinking.
What thought was still manifest was one of the “hope I don’t laugh out loud” kind at the pleasure of both the truly wonderful display of flowers and the incongruous side-line decorations – lovingly dressed-up scarecrow types that were plopped among the floral displays. And geraniums (!) surrounding the farmer on his tractor…
Nothing but pleasure, really, including the fact that a hummingbird photobombed my photography amongst the flowers.
I can’t grow lilies in my woodland garden which lacks sun. They would also be too showy for the rest of the flowers that congregate in small spots devoted to a cottage garden. But they surely impress with the intensity of all of their parts, from stamen size to smell to saturation of hues – a photographer’s delight.
Music today introduces Ignace Lilien – yes, the German plural of the flower’s name. A renaissance man, composer, pianist, chemical engineer and all round art aficionado, he survived the Holocaust in Holland with fake papers. I chose his song cycle – 4 songs of beggars – because of the affinity to the “lilies in the field” meme so often cited in the Bible. But I am also adding a Sonata Modern Times just because it is so up-lifting.
And now for something utterly different, simply because of my chance to sit still and photograph a few dragonflies recently – and my sense that it’s been way too long since we looked at nature….
Here are some facts:
(All taken from this article here, which had a nice summary of the topic.)
1 ) Dragonflies were some of the first winged insects to evolve, some 300 million years ago. Modern dragonflies have wingspans of only two to five inches, but fossil dragonflies have been found with wingspans of up to two feet.
2 ) Some scientists theorize that high oxygen levels during the Paleozoic era allowed dragonflies to grow to monster size.
3 ) There are more than 5,000 known species of dragonflies, all of which (along with damselflies) belong to the order Odonata, which means “toothed one” in Greek and refers to the dragonfly’s serrated teeth.
4 ) In their larval stage, which can last up to two years, dragonflies are aquatic and eat just about anything—tadpoles, mosquitoes, fish, other insect larvae and even each other.
5 ) At the end of its larval stage, the dragonfly crawls out of the water, then its exoskeleton cracks open and releases the insect’s abdomen, which had been packed in like a telescope. Its four wings come out, and they dry and harden over the next several hours to days.
6 ) Dragonflies are expert fliers. They can fly straight up and down, hover like a helicopter and even mate mid-air. If they can’t fly, they’ll starve because they only eat prey they catch while flying.
7 ) Dragonflies catch their insect prey by grabbing it with their feet. They’re so efficient in their hunting that, in one Harvard University study, the dragonflies caught 90 to 95 percent of the prey released into their enclosure.
8 ) The flight of the dragonfly is so special that it has inspired engineers who dream of making robots that fly like dragonflies.
9 ) Some adult dragonflies live for only a few weeks while others live up to a year.
10 ) Nearly all of the dragonfly’s head is eye, so they have incredible vision that encompasses almost every angle except right behind them.
11 ) Dragonflies, which eat insects as adults, are a great control on the mosquito population. A single dragonfly can eat 30 to hundreds of mosquitoes per day.
12 ) Hundreds of dragonflies of different species will gather in swarms, either for feeding or migration. Little is known about this behavior, but the Dragonfly Swarm Project is collecting reports on swarms to better understand the behavior. (Report a swarm here.)
13 ) Scientists have tracked migratory dragonflies by attaching tiny transmitters to wings with a combination of eyelash adhesive and superglue. They found that green darners from New Jersey traveled only every third day and an average of 7.5 miles per day (though one dragonfly traveled 100 miles in a single day).
Bonus for nature lovers: here is one of the earliest film makers exploring the secrets of nature, dragonflies included:
