Wordless Wednesday - Flowing

Foggy Morning

One of those wonderful nebulous early autumn mornings when the village is cloaked and mysterious.

The fog swirls around everything in billowing waves, smoothing hard edges and rounding the contours of house and street. Out of the pearly gray comes a sound now and again, village doors opening and closing as sleepy residents collect their newspapers, the muffled purring of autos, an early commuter detouring through the park, a caroling bird, the whistle of a faraway train that is usually only a faint echoing in the air.

On such mornings, the world seems a magical place, going on and on forever and filled with luminous possibility.

Late Blooming

Late Nectars

Common Eastern Bumble Bee
(Bombus impatiens)

On these cool (sometimes downright cold) autumn mornings, I have been watching bumble bees move slowly among the Michaelmas daisies, various sedums and culinary herbs in the garden. Call it what one will, the experience is a bittersweet reminder of seasonal turnings, transience and the natural order of things.

There will be small bursts of energy when the day warms up, but the northern bumbles are approaching the endings of their dear little furry lives. It always makes me glad to see them partaking of late nectars, for they will only be here on the earth with us for a few more days.

Born in early and middle summer, most bumbles are felled by autumn's frosts. But for newborn (and already mated) over-wintering queens, their cheery buzzing existences come into being and pass away within a single calendar year.

I've often thought that the "humble bumble" is a perfect metaphor for life in what I like to call the calendar of the seasons or "the Great Round".

Bronze and Scarlet

Friday Ramble - The Last Rose

Given the pace at which our days and nights are cooling down here in the north, it appears that this year's rose bloomings are at an end. What an astonishing season it was - profligate, shamelessly extravagant, so riotously hued and sublimely fragrant that the bees in our garden went about in a state of happy buzzing intoxication all summer long.

The last rose of this calendar year is a glorious creature to be sure. She was captured just after sunrise, kissed by early breezes, brilliantly scarlet, velvety and dappled with beads of glossy dew.

Viewing the last rose of the season is always a "wabi sabi" experience, and however beautiful the bloom in its suchness, one cannot refrain from thinking that it is transient, waning and already passing away. The Buddhist expression for suchness is "Tathata", and it comes from "Tathagata", meaning both "one who has thus gone"(Tathā-gata) and "one who has thus come" (Tathā-āgata). Tathagata is how the Buddha referred to himself while he walked this earth, and thus it is a synonym for Buddha and "Awakened One".

Tathata describes the contemplation or appreciation of everyday things in their own fleeting space and time. No two objects or moments in life are just the same, and we may partake fully of each, knowing that it is perfect, complete within itself, utterly unique and ephemeral.

Nowhere in the plane of existence is suchness or tathata more evident or perfectly expressed than in that which is wild, natural and often mundane.

Thursday Poem - Sometimes

A lambent moon in the east tonight, she pours her
light across the sleeping garden, the hills beyond,
shadows painting the old fence in pansy purple
and dusky indigo, fragrant cedars beyond the
pale rustling like thin silk in the hollow wind.

Starlight, moonlight and inky darkness make their
way along the grass under the trees, there's the
light tinkle and swaying movement of wind bells
suspended high from the rafters over my head
in the richly textured fabric of this autumn nightfall.

It's the journey's face, its true and ardent shape,
these lights and darks, those peaks and valleys,
the meandering trail into the bosky hills being
followed by an elderly shapeshifting acolyte —
she who is alone, yet magically enfolded on this
windy night in September's middling pages.

Sometimes, just sometimes, being alone in
the hills at night out under the waxing moon
confers a sense of community, a wild and gentle
benediction. It makes the passionate wanderer
long to dance and howl, rejoicing in the light.

Cate Kerr
September 2008

Wordless Wednesday - Fall "Mums"

For the Autumn Equinox

Today is the Autumn Equinox, and it marks the second of three observances dedicated to the harvest, the other two being the earlier Lughnasadh on August 1 and Samhain (or Halloween) which follows on October 31.

We know this day by many names: Harvest Home, Mabon, the Feast of Ingathering, Equinozio di Autunno (Strega), Meán Fómhair, and in Druidic tradition, Alban Elfed, to name just a few. Mabon is the name by which Autumn Equinox ritual observances are most widely known these days, but the connection between the Welsh hunter god and this day is flimsy to say the least. Mabon's only discernible link with the Autumn Equinox is that he is reputed to have been born on this day. Lugh, Demeter, Ceres, Persephone or John Barleycorn would have been better choices as a deity presiding over the Autumn Equinox. South of the equator seasonal patterns are reversed, and this day is celebrated as Ostara or the Spring Equinox.

In the old Teutonic calendar, the Autumn Equinox marked the beginning of the Winter Finding, a ceremonial interval lasting until Winter Night on October 15, also the date of the old Norse New Year. In Christian tradition, the festival is closely associated with St. Michael the Archangel - his feast takes place a few days from now on September 25, known for obvious reasons as Michaelmas.

The term "equinox" describes an astronomical co-ordinate, and the expression "Autumn (or Fall) Equinox" describes the day on which the sun seems to pass directly over the equator on a long journey southward, moving away from our northern hemisphere. Of course, things are actually the other way around, and it is the earth which is in motion, with the northern hemisphere tilting away from the sun at this time of the year. The tilting is caused by a slight wobble or in astronomical lingo precess, and as a result, the earth is actually about 23 degrees and 27 minutes off true perpendicular as it spins merrily on its own axis. Earth's wobble determines how many hours of daylight and darkness we receive at various times of the year, and it gives rise to the four glorious seasons which constitute our calendar year.

The day is about abundance and harvest, but it is also about balance, for this is one of only two days in the whole turning year when day and night are perfectly balanced in length. Like all the old festivals, this is a liminal or threshold time, for we are poised between two seasons, summer and autumn.

Autumn skies overhead are brilliant blue and full of singing geese; the leaves of tree and vine and creeper are turning ruby, russet, burgundy and gold. There is vibrant color everywhere, and wherever I turn, I am dazzled and entranced. My larder is slowly filling up with quart sealers of tomatoes and squash, wax beans and pickles, relishes and preserves, and those who know me will probably not be surprised to learn that the pantry is arranged by color and designed to be a feast for the eye as well as the palate.

On this day of color and richness and equilibrium, we can be still for a moment and acknowledge our bond with the hallowed earth. We can offer up thanks for the dear little blue planet which is our home, and for the autumn bounty bestowed by Mama Gaia, that which we are reaping and "putting by" to see us through the long nights of winter. On this day, we may also rightfully celebrate clan and tribe and community and sharing - all of the fine old qualities which unite us in a dancing chain spiraling on down the years from the ancestors to the present day and ourselves.

Whatever you call it, a very happy Autumn Equinox, Harvest Home, Mabon, Feast of Ingathering, Equinozio di Autunno, Meán Fómhair and Alban Elfed to you and your clan.

Apple Time

No, not just orchard time or apple time - it's MacIntosh time, one of my favorite times in the whole turning year. Keep the chocolate - most of it anyway - and give me a MacIntosh apple or three. John Chapman, or Johnny Appleseed as he was known during his lifetime, was one of my early heroes, and I remember the words of his song, as they were taught to me when I was a toddler. Does anyone remember that song? Part of it goes....

The Lord is good to me,
and how I thank Thee, Lord
for giving me the things I need:
the sun, the rain and the appleseed;
the Lord is good to me.

Every single glorious spicy MacIntosh apple in existence is the child of a single apple tree discovered in 1811 by John McIntosh on his farm at Dundela in Dundas County, up the St. Lawrence River and only an hour or two from the little blue house in the village.

There is no way to be certain, but apple pundits posit that the heirloom Snow apple is a probable parent of the MacIntosh, and the Fameuse is also a likely contender. The Mac has illustrious offspring of its own: the Macoun, Spartan, Cortland, Empire and Jonamac. Both the Paula Red and the Jersey Mac are also thought to be related, and both resemble the MacIntosh.

A good ripe MacIntosh needs a frost or two to develop real bite and spice and fragrance and juiciness, and although the MacIntosh's children possess many of its sterling qualities, not a one can measure up to the perfection of biting into a MacIntosh in its prime on a fine sunny autumn day.

Before the Wind Flying

Umbilical

Thursday Poem - Rapture

Peepers, tiny tree frogs, punctuate the night,
their small song a promise of spring's return.
Overhead, the stars tap out their ancient stories,
and a comet appears, out of the darkest
reaches of space, from somewhere past Pluto.
The last time it came by, the Great Pyramids
were being built at Giza, Rome and Athens
were still centuries away, hunter-gatherers
roamed the Illinois Valley, and the Inuit
followed the rhythms of musk ox and caribou.

Now, in the new millennium,
we are bombarded daily with more information
than we can process, the endless
noise of television, more bad news
than the human heart can stand.

Standing here alone, under the blackboard
of night, away from any ambient light,
everything I know falls away,
and I'm back around the campfire, looking up at sparks
flying in the dark, seeing the comet every night
for weeks, its glowing heat, the luminous tail
thirty million miles long streaming and pulsing
like smoke from a single candle, a diaphanous scarf,
the breath of God. I am standing alone in this black night,
feet on the ground, mouth open, breathing in stars.

Barbara Crooker
(First published in Windhover)

Wordless Wednesday - Reflection

Autumn Confetti

Golden

Out in the Starry Deeps

The Horsehead Nebula
(Barnard 33)

In the early hours of a mid-September day, I rise and stand with my tea in the garden looking up into the region of the autumn stars. A waning moon is dancing almost directly overhead in the darkness, and I bow to Her in greeting. What am I doing outside in the darkness at this hour? I haven't a clue, but it feels good to be out here.

Just dancing his way above the southern horizon, the giant constellation Orion is brandishing his club, and four stars form the outline of his body: red Betelgeuse, Belatrix, Saiph and blue Rigel. Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka are his twinkling belt, and dangling from the belt to form his sword are four solar entities: the NGC 1981 star cluster, Orionis, the Orion Nebula, and Hatysa. Just below Alnitak resides one of my favorite celestial objects ever, the Horsehead Nebula, and I make a mad dash back into the little blue house to find my souped up astronomy binoculars and have a good look at it. Orion and the Horsehead Nebula were the first stellar entities I was shown as a child, and seeing them remains a great pleasure, even after all these years.

The stellar entity called the Horsehead Nebula is actually named Barnard 33, and it lies within the brilliantly hued IC 434, part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. It (the Horsehead) is a dark nebula, an interstellar cloud so dense that it blocks out the light of background stars and other emissions. The splendid magenta glow is from hydrogen gases behind the nebula ionized by Sigma Orionis close by.

Oh world of wonders! The Horsehead Nebula is a kind of cosmic nursery composed of gases and dust, and the points of light visible within it are new star life coming into being - infant stars are dancing their way into existence in the gorgeous predawn sky. It is sobering and wondrous and breathtaking to realize that what I am seeing this morning is at least 1500 light years away from this dear little earth on which I am standing, and that what I am witnessing happened long long ago. It makes one aware of just how tiny and insignificant a part of the celestial equation she is, but we too are creatures made of stardust, and we belong here. I once wrote a very bad poem about it, but Joanna Macy said it best:

"Since every particle in your body goes back to the first flaring forth of space and time, you're really as old as the universe. So when you are lobbying at your congressperson's office, or visiting your local utility, or testifying at a hearing on nuclear waste, or standing up to protect an old grove of redwoods, you are doing that not out of some personal whim, but in the full authority of your 15 billion years."

Orion is one of an illustrious celestial company. Southeast of the giant is the dog star Sirius, and northwest lies Aldebaran. Eastward across his massive shoulders lies Procyon, and north are Castor and Pollux. Winter is surely on its way, for the Winter Circle is coming into view - an asterism which includes these stars: Riel, Aldebaran, Capella, Castor, Pollux and Sirius.

Friday Ramble - September 11

As this is the eighth anniversary of the September 11 tragedy, there will be no Friday Ramble today - not a moment of silence, but a whole page or post of silence in honor of the fallen.

Thursday Poem - Sometimes I am startled out of myself

like this morning, when wild geese came squawking,
flapping their rusty hinges, and something about their trek
across the sky made me think about life, the places
of brokenness, the places of sorrow, the places where grief
has strung me out to dry. And then the geese come calling,
the leader falling back when tired, another taking her place.
Hope is borne on wings. Look at the trees. They turn to gold
for a brief while, then lose it all each November.
Through the cold months, they stand, take the worst
weather has to offer. And still, they put out shy green leaves
come April, come May. The geese glide over the cornfields,
land on the pond with its sedges and reeds.
You do not have to be wise. Even a goose knows how to find
shelter, where the corn still lies in the stubble and dried stalks.
All we do is pass through here, the best way we can.
They stitch up the sky, and it is whole again.

Barbara Crooker,
Abalone Moon Journal,
Summer 2004

Wordless Wednesday - Flay Craw

And They're Off...

There they were a short time before the sun went down yesterday, a happy bunch of wild turkey jakes (juvenile males), gallivanting along a country road in the Lanark Highlands and reluctant to leave what seemed to them to be a safe and easy evening jaunt along the gravel and into the cornfields nearby.

For some reason, a group of wild turkeys is usually referred to here in the north as either a rafter or a gang. Neither expression makes any sense to me - a group of turkeys can only be called a gobbling, in much the same way that I will always think of a group of crows as being a rowdy.

Whatever one chooses to call them, wild turkeys can run like race horses when the spirit moves them - this assemblage had no trouble at all in staying well ahead of the old VW on that lovely winding dirt road in Lanark.

Labor Day

While Labor Day is celebrated at the beginning of May in many cultures and is closely allied with Beltane, in North America, we celebrate our labors on the first Monday in September. Our celebrations usually coincide with the harvest, and they are more closely allied with Mabon or Harvest Home on or around September 21. What better image for Labor day than this rolling farm field near the hamlet of Rosetta in the Lanark Highlands with its huge rolls of golden hay drying in the sun, the wide marsh and fragrant cedars behind?

On hot summer afternoons, there is the resonant buzz of cicadas. In early morning and at September dusk, there are deer and wild turkeys foraging here, and it is not unusual to see flocks of wild turkeys standing on the great round bales like sentinels. Always in autumn, there is the music of wild geese passing overhead.

One of my favorite fens is nearby, home in season to muskrat, herons, water snakes, little green frogs and floating clouds of fragrant yellow water lilies. The water lily leaves in my fen place are turning russet, gold and burgundy now, and they are adorned by jeweled dragonflies resting in the autumn sunlight and warming their wings for flight.

Field and fen are places for all seasons and all creatures, and they are cornucopias or horns of plenty for all who come. In recent weeks, the visiting creatures in our field have been local farmers cutting, winnowing and baling hay for the long nights time.

Have a good Labor Day!

Turning

The Harvest Moon of September

September's moon is my favorite moon in the whole turning year - it is also (above all others), the one I cannot describe or take an adequate photo of, no matter how extensive my preparations. Every year, I potter off to a good vantage point, set up camera and tripod, check all relevant settings and wait patiently. The moon rises over the trees (sometimes a rooftop), and I stand there in the darkness like an ecstatic fool with my eyes wide open, a heart full of wonder and a paucity of words.

Last year, I described the situation as a cosmic joke, the business of this creaky elderwoman standing out under the trees and taking picture after picture of Lady Moon, but never a good one. Well, here we are again, another glorious Harvest Moon gone by and another mediocre image captured and shared. I am reminded of the Zen tale in which a wise monk on his deathbed was asked to describe his life, and he exclaimed with a smile, "just one mistake after another..."

Whether or not I managed to capture Lady Moon adequately last evening does not matter a fig or a hoot in the greater scheme of things, and I should be content with that. She rose into the heavens like a great golden cosmic lantern, and I was there in the darkness to witness that perfect rising. As I packed up my stuff later and made ready to depart homeward, I thought that such beauty deserved a grand ecstatic gesture of some kind, a chant or a benediction - certainly more than my simple deep bow.

We also know this moon as the:

Acorn Bread Moon , Acorns Gathered Moon, All Ripe Moon, Aster Moon, Autumn Moon, Barley Moon, Between Harvest & Eating Indian Corn Moon, Black Calf Moon, Calf Grows Hair Moon, Chrysjavascript:void(0)anthemum Moon , Corn Moon, Corn Maker Moon, Dancing Moon , Deer Paw the Earth Moon, Dog Salmon Return to Earth Moon, Elderberry Moon, Drying Grass Moon, Fruit Moon, Hay Cutting Moon, Her Acorns Moon, Holy Moon, Hulling Corn Moon, Index-finger Moon, Leaf Fall Moon, Leaf Yellow Moon, Leaves Changing Color Moon, Little Chestnut Moon, Maize Moon, Mallow Blossom Moon, Moon of the First Frost, Moon of Full Harvest, Moon of Much Freshness, Moon When the Leaves Fall off, Moon of Plenty, Moon When the Corn Is Taken in, Moon When the Plums Are Scarlet , Moon When Deer Paw the Earth, Moon When Calves Grow Hair, Moon When Everything Ripens and Corn Is Harvested, Moose Moon , Morning Glory Moon, Mulberry Moon, Nut Moon, Papaw Moon, Rice Moon, Rudbeckia Moon , Seed Moon , Shining Leaf Moon, Silky Oak Moon, Singing Moon, Soaproot Dug For Fish Poison Moon , Sturgeon Moon, Wavy or Snow Goose Moon, Wine Moon, Wood Moon, Yellow Leaf Moon.

Thursday Poem - Fall Song

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

Mary Oliver
(From American Primitive)

Wordless Wednesday - By the Curb

Cocooned