Encountering Earth

Snow...  I love the snow! This love was rekindled on Tuesday evening when I took a walk in the park. It was dusk, the snow was falling gently and gathering on the pine trees. The lake had a thin coat of ice and snowflakes made it white. Snow is so amazing. It is hard to imagine that each flake is unique!  I looked up snowflake on wiki and found: A  snowflake  is a single  ice crystal  that has achieved a sufficient size and may have amalgamated with others, then falls through the  Earth's atmosphere  as  snow .  Each flake nucleates around a dust particle in  supersaturated  air masses by attracting  supercooled  cloud water droplets, which  freeze  and accrete in crystal form. Complex shapes  emerge  as the flake moves through differing temperature and humidity zones in the atmosphere, such that individual snowflakes differ in detail from one another... It always fascinates me to look up the ...

I was fortunate to spend time at Thanksgiving with my family in south Jersey. My sister and I took a lovely walk in the woods behind the cemetery where my dad and most of his family are buried. This is the Wharton tract, a preserve of 122,880 acres in the heart of the Jersey Pine Barrens, the largest in the state. When I go online to read about Batsto Village and Wharton State Forest, it leaves me kind of cold. Facts and figures don't give the feel of home and history. The Pine Barrens are my bioregional home. I am a fourth-generation "Piney" - someone born and raised in the pines. The sandy soil, the pitch pines, cat briers, teaberry, jack oak these are my kin. The waters of the Mullica and Batsto Rivers are lifeblood. I still delight in the sweet smell of the cedar water; I relish the irony taste of the artisan well at Batsto. To walk along these rivers with their slow, serpentine meanderings is like walking with a friend. The feel of pine duff and sand beneath my feet...

Last week I took a walk on the bike path along the Mohawk River. I tried to pay attention to the changes in the river since the weather turned cooler. First of all, the invasive water chestnuts that had chocked the shore were gone and the water ran freely. The reeds and the cattails were turning brown and struggling to stay upright in the Autumn wind. The geese were gathering close to shore; mallards too. An ice coating formed on the water. It was thin and subtle, but it foretold the coming of the winter. The water of the Mohawk would be stilled by the ice, resting from its labors. I love to watch the freeze-up process -  some years huge chunks of ice cover the river.  Paying attention was the gift of the day. The river was speaking of this transition to winter; it told many tales. I love this river that braids through Schenectady. It has its story and mine is included with it.  Tenonanatche is its native Mohawk name - "a river flowing through a mountain". Native names a...

Leaves... I love this quote, "Lord, let your love fall down on us like Autumn leaves". The leaves are such blessings to the whole community of life. They thrill us with color. They tantalize us with textures. They gentle our path and make music as we walk through them. Squirrels use them for nests. Little critters like bugs hide in them. The forest floor rejoices in receiving the abundance of prospective new soil and insulation from icy winter storms. Often times they are seen as a nuisance - work in raking or leaf blowing, collecting, bagging, etc. Truth be told our landlady has someone do these tasks so I can wax poetically about the leaves. But I have been trying to pay more attention to each leaf - each has a journey, each is unique. I focus on each singularity, never to be repeated leaf - well of course not everyone, but a few individuals! A leaf caught in a fence, a leaf spinning from an oak tree, a leaf floating on the water of a pond. The veins in the leaf help me...

Fall is one of my favorite seasons! The colors are rich and luscious. The textures of trees and branches being un-dressed and plants showing their inners are so fascinating. The crunching of the leaves, the calling of the geese, the last songs of the crickets create a symphony of sounds. Last week I walked the towpath at the Vischer's Ferry Preserve. The marsh was resplendent in its dying. Cattails were turning from green to yellow; their tails were bursting open with soft, plushy fiber that holds their seeds. Reeds were yet refusing to bend to frost, so they set a green background. The vines were brilliant crimson. Oaks put on a deep copper color. Maples flamed in reds and oranges. Poplars seemed unimaginative and turned yellow and brown. I kept saying to myself- pay attention! When did you ever see such an amazing palate? Drink in the beauty and the wonder of how nature dies in style! What do you love about Fall? Please share it!

Last weekend I was in the Adirondacks and took a hike to a waterfall. The day was a luscious sky blue. The kind of sky that wants to pull you into eternity, until you realize that eternity is always right where you stand! The falls were running - a steady flow that bounded and lept over the rocks. The flow was just enough to cause the water to shine in the sunlight coming through the hemlocks. But it wasn't a cascade that covered the rocks. There was a gentle play of water and rock, water and sunlight. A gentle music filled the air and lulled me to sleep in the arms of the roots of a hemlock. Fast asleep! I awoke, feeling like Rip van Winkle and thinking I'd better get up and get going, or who would find me there? But I fell back into a sweet slumber. I felt grounded, held, peaceful. Mother Earth wants to sing to us, to be with us, to soothe and heal us. When do you allow her to do that?

I am usually consistent about doing things - especially things I enjoy. So, I ask myself, why don't you consistently do your blog? I haven't done a post since March! Sometimes, I think I just want to give up all environmental work. The news is bad and getting worse. I find all the destruction really depressing. But that is a poor attitude since one of the purposes of this blog was to share encounters with Earth and invite others to do so too! So this is my attempt to get back on track. The last Sunday in September I took a delightful hike to the Strawberry Fields Preserve outside of Amsterdam. The preserve is managed by the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy www.mohakhudson.org It was a blue sky day with mare's tail clouds high in the sky. The trail was well mowed and effortless. The trees were an amazing diversity of oaks, hickories, cherry, maple, and hophornbeam. Purple astors and lavender fleabane dotted the field. But the reason for my pilgrimage there was the fringed ...