A Thursday shot…luckily for this bird, today’s not the last Thursday in November, American Thanksgiving.
Category Archives: Nature
Wordless Wednesday: Growth
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Valentine’s Day is For The Birds
Our first Valentine’s Day together, Steve and I attended a presentation on raptors at the Volo Bog Nature Center. We got to hear about and see up close some beautiful birds of prey and learn more about their habits and how they differ from what the presenter called “sissy birds” – birds who migrate to avoid our Northern winters. Then we went and had sushi at a nearby restaurant. The next Valentine’s Day, we went to a presentation on animal mating habits at the McHenry County Conservation District education center. They provided some great chocolate snacks, warm drinks, a slide show on various courtship behaviors, and a candlelit ski trail hike. They played a recording of coyote calls to try to entice some real responses, but there were none. Still, the eerie, cold hillside was suitably mysterious and romantic for those of us who are simply in love with nature. This morning, we took off from Milwaukee to Madison for our weekly Naturalist Enrichment course at the Arboretum of UW Madison. We heard a professor from the zoology department give a presentation entitled “Why Do Birds Sing?” One of the main purposes for bird song is, of course, to attract a mate. Thus, the Valentine’s Day connection was made again. Steve asked a question of the presenter to try to find some explanation for the early morning activity of birds in our neighborhood. “What’s the best time of day to sing a love song?” Several audible chuckles and giggles were heard in the audience, which is predominantly silver-haired and female. The presenter talked about the morning chorus and the ability for sound to be carried further in the chilly predawn air. I smiled down at my notes and pressed my knee against his leg. After the talk was over, a nice lady with short, white hair and a thickly knit sweater came over and leaned across me. To Steve, she said, “You can sing your love song ANY TIME you want!”
I love hanging out with retired professors! And I love that my daughter lives just a few blocks away from the Arboretum and invited us over for “breakfish” afterwards. Valentine’s hugs all around and more conversation about her upcoming wedding. Very satisfying way to spend the day, indeed.
Nerd love and natural love to everyone! What a wonderful world!
Did I mention it’s still cold here?
Weekly Photo Challenge: Home
Home. A weighty concept in some ways, but also tending toward the sentimental. It can connote fortification, shelter….and yet, homey can be quaint and trivial. We invent and reinvent our relationship to home throughout our lives. A place to go to, a place to run from, a place without, a place within. Maybe the truth about ‘home’ is that it is changing and fluid. That’s what I want to illustrate.
This photo was taken out of my bedroom window, from within the warm nest where I find safety, comfort, and respite. And yet, the window is transparent. It doesn’t completely shield me from the cold visually, nor does it keep me from feeling it (it’s an old drafty house, not well insulated at all!). It lets me come face to face with the physical realities of frost and even pulls me beyond the immediate perimeter of my house, across the street, up into the trees, and all the way out of the Earth’s atmosphere to the Moon. And still, this is all my home, too. The Universe is where I live. Home is near as well as far. And why should I not feel safety and belonging in all of the world’s manifestations? Cold and death and distance and infinity do not annihilate me, nor do they exalt me. They are familiar and comforting, too. I do not control my home as I do not control the weather…I live in it. And life is bigger than most of us imagine.
For another picture of home, mundane and temporal but nevertheless real and interesting, my last post was about our home business, Scholar and Poet Books. Please click here and take a look!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Unique
I really like the photo posted on The Daily Post at Word Press today for the photo challenge. The single, blooming red tulip in a field of budded yellow ones is an immediate visual image of what it means to be unique. Outstanding in your field, the only one of your kind, different from all the rest. Snowflakes. People. We’re all unique like that…so does that make being unique – not so unique? Tricky concept, really.
I’ve been spending a lot of time this week photographing vintage games, toys, and books from an estate and putting them up for resale on e-Bay. Part of that time has also been spent researching the object to find out if other people are selling it and for what price. Manufactured goods are not so unique. They’re usually mass produced. But after 50, 60, or 70 years, they begin to be more rare. Others of their kind have been destroyed or lost for good. They begin to show wear in unique ways: non-duplicated tears, rubs, bumps, scratches. But usually, there is another one of that item’s “siblings” out there, somewhere. I guess what I’m learning is that differences and similarities are rather fluid. We are the same AND we are different at the same time. We are connected in mass and atom and substance in numerous ways that we only dimly understand. Categorizing and separating is something that we like to do because it narrows the overwhelming complexity of the world into an order that our little brains can comprehend. But it’s all a game, really. The truth is closer to wonder, the moment when you see something and exclaim “Look at that!” not because it’s necessarily different or special or anything else but just because it IS! Wow! There it is being the way it is and isn’t it marvelous!!
Okay, with that in mind, here’s something I picked up at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, and I didn’t know what made it the way it was, but it seemed familiar and strange at the same time.
My best guess is that these leaves are from the tulip poplar tree. The lobes are not formed in the typical way on these individuals. Mutants? Perhaps. I only found one that was like a perfect heart. The yellower one was a relative, sort of the link to the “normal” tulip poplar shape. I examined the edges very carefully to determine whether someone had shaped them on purpose. They appeared to be completely natural. (oh, and the acorn is just for composition and because it had a really sexy luster!)
Variety, diversity, uniqueness. “And I think to myself…….what a wonderful world!”
Weekly Photo Challenge: Love
Gaaauugh! Why’d it have to be LOVE today? Being in a couple relationship is a whole lotta hard work. Honestly. Hearts & flowers & violins just aren’t on the horizon here today…did you have to remind me?! Okay, I’m gonna take another tack completely. Here it is, my interpretation of love….this is me and a Ponderosa pine in New Mexico. They smell like vanilla in the sunshine. Warm, honest, natural love without that mess of human complication: I give you TREES, ladies and gentlemen.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Beyond
Do you have a photo which invites the viewer to look beyond? Are there hidden depths in the background? Is the focal point just a framing for the rest of the picture? If it’s not clear why we should look beyond, tell us! Lead us through the story in your photo.
December 22, 2012, just at dusk. I am upstairs, in bed, cold, alone. The world did not end, even though the sun is far away. I feel disconnected from warmth. I look out my window. The neighbors advertise their jolly associations, but I do not belong to that club. I look beyond…the sky is aflame, fire licks around the turquoise expanse of our atmosphere, the sun invites me to the outer edges of my vision. There is the belonging, there the community, there the warmth. Beyond. The Universe is bigger than we imagine, and so are we.
Beyond
Mensch sighting!
In my post a few days ago, (Oh! The Humanity!) I sent out a plea for examples of admirable human beings as an antidote to the kind of internet sensations who fail to inspire and instead make me nauseated. You know what I’m talking about, right? The rampant dumbing-down of our species, “urgent” stories of greed and fear and violence and stupidity and pettiness and the like are probably a dangerous toxin to our culture. Where are the role models who will help us do better and why aren’t we using our advanced media to promote them more often? For every “Who Wore It Better?”, we could be viewing 5 “Who Lived It Better?” stories. Why not?
I have enjoyed a morning at work in the kitchen and with the book business while listening to the music of my Mensch of the Day. This is an artist who has inspired me since my pre-adolescent days, and I’ve only just discovered this live recording from 2 years before his death. He is the recipient of the 1993 Albert Schweitzer Music Award and the only non-classical musician to be so distinguished. His humanitarian efforts supported the National Wildlife Federation, Friends of the Earth, The Cousteau Society, and the Windstar Foundation. The CD I have was a concert for The Wildlife Conservation Society’s 100th anniversary. Ladies and gentleman…….John Denver: a singer and songwriter whose lyrics ring with authenticity and passion, whose music spans genres from country to pop to blues to rock, and whose commitment to peace and preservation permeated his career. As a cultural ambassador for the U. S., he visited China, Viet Nam and the Soviet Union and recorded a duet with a Soviet artist, becoming the first American to do so. In my mind, he follows in the footsteps of another hero of mine, Pete Seeger, who, at 93, is still active in the same kind of musical ambassadorship that promotes cultural tolerance and environmental responsibility. I did have the privilege of hearing him give a concert for children when I was in my single digits.
Who will carry the torch when he passes away?
To read more about the Schweitzer Award, see http://www.anchor-international.org/07.html. For more about John Denver’s career, see http://learningtogive.org/papers/paper349.html. For a good listen, go to “You Say the Battle Is Over”.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Illumination
“Lights are functional — everyday objects in our rooms and on our streets. Yet lights can be powerful symbols: signs of life, curiosity, and discovery. ” So goes the challenge description for this week. My first instinct was to think of the photos I took New Year’s Eve of candlelight at the table. I’ve been experimenting with low key lighting and how to bump my camera settings to accommodate that. But I’ve already posted some of those. My next thought was to post one I took yesterday, and I think it’ll be my choice. True to my own natural preference, the light I’ve chosen is the very essence and source of life, curiosity, and discovery – the Sun. At this time of year, we drift farther away from our sustaining Star. A gauzy shroud interferes. We are in a state of indirect, ethereal contact. Our longing is enhanced and unsatisfied. We pause to ponder the diminishment. Physically, we may suffer on a cellular level. Emotionally, we may avoid or embrace this spiritual journey into greater darkness.
I was walking through the Arboretum at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. I came to the crest of a hill from the north and descended towards the Visitor Center when I saw this tree lit from the south by the winter sun. I hope you like this interpretation of Illumination:
Winter illumination
Making Good the Resolution
Yesterday’s post was about the weekly photo challenge prompt: Resolved. I stated that land use research and getting outside were goals for this year. Yesterday afternoon, we ventured into moraine country and found a preserve managed by the Nature Conservancy. I’m excited about this discovery as a place to revisit in the different seasons and a starting point for understanding what preservation, restoration, and conservation mean to a particular area. Here are some photographs, then, of the Lulu Lake preserve outside of East Troy, Wisconsin:
They might be giants
Steve pointed out this small formation for me to photograph
Invitation to walk on water
scillagrace 