Descent into Winter

Winter Sunrise
This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.
~ John Muir

winter’s time
it’s bare essential time, parses my day’s responsibilities to the minimum
the descent into winter lessens my awareness of inconsequential matters
let me hibernate and rest in my inner landscape, know intimately its deep beauty first.
when light shines again, i will be, i will do.
let go, let go. until the reconnection,
the sky lights and breaks open beribboned in yellows and pinks
winds blow
renewal is nigh

Calling Forth Courage while Contemplating Lessons from Nature

Bridge over Starkweather Creek

Bridge over Starkweather Creek © 2014 Bo Mackison

“If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused…

If I did surrender to the earth’s intelligence?
Surrender to the earth itself, like a seed dispersed in autumns’ winds.

And drop upon the earth – dark, dank, ripe. Drop upon the earth
and settle in, as layers of leaves and autumn litter cover me, intact, protected.

Footbridge

Crossing the Footbridge © 2014 Bo Mackison

So like children, we begin again…

to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.”

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

This seed of me, it embraces the darkness
and in the waning light, holding my stories of decay and decline,
enters a period where the only light source is that of inner reflection.

Embraces shadow as darkness makes ready the parts hungering for new life.
Waiting, waiting
in anticipation of unlimited possibilities.

Kangaroo Lake in Door County – The Magic of Studying Details, Then Turning Around

Kangaroo Lake

Kangaroo Lake – South View © 2014 Bo Mackison

The mid-October day was mercurial – one moment skies were blue, the next a wave of gray clouds pushed in from nearby Lake Michigan. Blustery winds buffeted me, causing me to lose my balance more than once. Then calm would descend for a brief respite for the wind and chill.

October in Door County, for sure, Wisconsin’s northeastern most point, a peninsula sticking out into tempestuous Lake Michigan.

Kangaroo Lake is one of the more protected places on the peninsula in fresh water lake in the center of Door County, and a wonderful place to go during the autumn festival days. Most of the crowd who comes to enjoy the views hug the shore of Door County, bay side and lake side. But there is much to be said for the wild beauty of the interior, too.

I loved studying the autumn changes of Kangaroo lake, standing on a narrow bridge of road that crosses the northern most bay. Fallen leaves were bobbing on the surface, the reeds were stripped of there green finery and their fuzzy seeds, and stood knee deep in the cold, stunningly blue water. Beyond, fir trees lined one side of the lake, and deciduous trees in this year’s last blaze of glory hugged the opposite side.

Then the sun disappeared in the scattered clouds.

Once I had taken in the scene with all my senses, as is my habit, I turn around to see what is behind me.

Kangaroo Lake

Kangaroo Lake – North View  © 2014 Bo Mackison

And the sun slid from the cloud cover, causing the lake ripples to shimmer in a sheet of dancing light.

A solitary island caught my attention. Birds were darting from the trees to the water and back again. Creatures were slipping in and out of the shadows and the shoreline brush.

Kangaroo Lake — its two faces. Both to be explored and adored.

Paper Birch – A Study of the Nature of a Tree

Paper Birch Tree

Paper Birch © 2014 Bo Mackison

…It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
~ Robert Frost, Birches

Known as a Canadian tree,
its habitat dips into the cooler regions of the United States.
Northeast, Midwest, Pacific Northwest.

Paper Birch Tree

Three Trunks, Paper Birch © 2014 Bo Mackison

Birch tree, a variety of common names.

Paperbark birch
White birch
Paper birch
Canoe birch

Paper Birch Tree

Paper Birch Bark with New Life © 2014 Bo Mackison

Trees just beginning out in life and newer branches on settled trees are white barked,
smooth at first, then knotted with black spirals,
finally emerging as papery bark,
shades of browns, grays, greens and creams,
multiple layers,
wild and messy. And precious to the eye and hand.

Paper Birch Tree

Paper Birch Tree and Canopy © 2014 Bo Mackison

The canopy is my space. A place to spy on visitors and nature’s ways.

Like me, it too must have sun, a place of its own in full sun,
or it will not thrive.

Yet it is a pioneer. After fire or clear-cut, the birch is an early returner.
It makes do with less than tolerable conditions as long as it has its sunlight.

Paper Birch Tree

Paper Birch Bark © 2014 Bo Mackison

Its botanical name is Betula papyrifera.
Papyrus. Oh yes.

If you’ve ever handled the fibrous papyrus, woven horizontal and vertically and pressed flat,
then you will see evidence of those very first papers in this curling, peeling bark
its deep reds and oranges exposed.

Textures so full of depth, the longing to add a human element is strong
and equally strong, the urge to let it be as it is.

Paper Birch Tree

Paper Birch © 2014 Bo Mackison

An arborist writes the “catkins offer little special interest”.
I disagree. Delicate and pale green, swinging with the rhythm of spring winds.
Seeds feed the redpoll, pine siskin, chickadee; the catkins feed the ruffed grouse.

Catkins transform into nutkins, winged and fringed,
and fly the seeds away from its parent in autumn.

Roots and wings, the parent tree provides.

Paper Birch Tree

My Three Trunk Seat © 2014 Bo Mackison

Once the birch was utilitarian –
Bark as canoe cover.
Containers – baskets, bowls, baby carriers.
Comforts – mats, bedding.
Giver of light – torches.
Tool maker – spears, bows and arrows.
Transportation – snowshoes and sleds.
Sustenance – birch syrup, beer, medicinal tonics.

My birch?

It continues its tradition as a container – as I perch in its tri-trunked seat.
As a comfort – when I hold its wildness in my hands
As a giver of light – of the interior sort.

And as sustenance – for my heart and soul.

Tenacity – Part I: Sunset Crater National Monument and its History

Sunset Crater National Monument

The cinder-strewn slope of Sunset Crater sweeps up a thousand feet into the blue sky.

Vincent Randall. He introduces himself in his native Apache language…my given adult Apache name means “Old Man Hunter.”

Randall, a Tonto Apache elder, has been coming here since the 1940s. He first came with his father in a 38 Chevy pickup… His people roamed the high country of this part of northern Arizona before they were confined to a tiny piece of land in the Verde Valley. But he says Sunset Crater remains a holy place:

“This is my people’s old homeland, you may have a piece of paper that gives you the deed which is a piece of paper that gives you the right to say you own this place, but in my heart, it’s still my land, it’s was given to us by God himself.

“One of the first things is when you enter a place like this you pray. Even today, I prayed this morning coming here.”

…from the transcript of Ken Burns’ The National Parks

Sunset Crater National Monument

Today Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument protects the Colorado Plateau’s most recent volcanic eruption.

It is the least-eroded cinder cone in the San Francisco Volcanic Field. The park is just a few miles north of Flagstaff, Arizona.

Sunset Crater National Monument

Part of what restricts us seeing things is that we have an expectation about what we will see, and we are actually perceptually restricted by that expectation. In a sense, expectation is the lost cousin of attention: both serve to reduce what we need to process of the world “out there.” Attention is the more charismatic member, packaged and sold more effectively, but expectation is also a crucial part of what we see. ~ Alexandra Horowitz, in The Art of Looking

Sunset Crater National Monument

Lava flows and twisted Ponderosa Pines © 2014 Bo Mackison

Most of the lava in this region is black, bubbly basalt, called a’a.

A’a starts as hot lava that erupts from the Earth’s surface. Contact with the atmosphere or water immediately cools the hot lava and begins a rapid hardening process.

See the dark horizontal cave? It is a called a vesicle.

When flowing lava was still hot and fluid, gas bubbles formed. Once the lava flow surface cooled,  then hardened, the gasses were trapped beneath the crust and formed a bubble. The lava hardened around the gases and a cave (or vesicle) was born.

Sunset Crater National Monument

“Much of the ground surface is covered by lava flows or deep volcanic cinder deposits; at first glance, the landscape still appears stark and inhospitable. But look again – within the dramatic geologic features are small islands of pine and aspen trees, desert shrubs, and wildflowers. These provide small but unique habitats for wildlife as well. Slowly but surely, life returns.”~ from Sunset Crater National Park publication

Sunset Crater National Monument

Cinder trail scattered with Ponderosa pine litter — nature’s litter – layers upon the ashy earth.

To walk this trail is to walk in a sacred space. Nature left to its own. Both the struggle and the survival.

Sunset Crater National Monument

Sunset Crater is one of the younger volcanoes in the contiguous United States and was named for its brilliantly colored frothy textures on the cone.

The last eruption took place sometime between about 1080 and 1150 AD, only 900 or so years ago.

Sunset Crater National Monument

Searing basalt lava and hot gases erupted from Sunset Crater Volcano.

The cinders on the rim of the cinder cone, bathed in these vapors, chemically reacted with them to form iron oxide, sulfur compounds, and gypsum The result — red, yellow, and purple basalt cinders which still color the Sunset Crater Volcano’s summit.

Chemical interactions, gases, fire and heat, a crust of ash and a’a. And still, the trees and plants grow. Life.

That’s the history and geology.

Next post is Part II. A different take on tenacity.