I study the lives on a leaf: the little Sleepers, numb nudgers in cold dimensions, Beetles in caves, newts, stone-deaf fishes, Lice tethered to long limp subterranean weeds, Squirmers in bogs, And bacterial creepers Wriggling through wounds Like elvers in ponds, Their wan mouths kissing the warm sutures, Cleaning and caressing, Creeping and healing.
–Theodore Roethke
Grand sweeps of earth and sky, far-spreading efflorescence, looming sunset, onrushing deluge—these immediately and effortlessly entrance, in part for a confluence of setting, lighting and vantage not commonly so favorable.
Yet do much less, so much less … Well, less is more …
–Robert Browning
And all the while, beneath nose and toes there presents an almost fractal infinity of lush sights and other sensations, needing only the narrowing of diffuse attention to spring into focus. Thus a new-reborn lupine—engaging enough already to the engaged eye—offers up a five-carat drop of hoarded dew,
closer inspection of which [double-click image to expand] reveals half the world, the sky above, the observer’s head, the sun that brings all of these things together and to life:
To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour
–William Blake
As spring burgeons forth, with the New England mercury still bouncing erratically, it is a good time to become intimate with some perhaps familiar but under-examined corner of a facet of the Indra’s web of living complexity. Crop, crop again, sharpen the focus, let the mundane be a window into the extraordinary. Thus, where an artificed puddle in a copied cavity freezes over slowly by night and drusy rime is polished away by dawn’s warmth, a patchy mirror shows bright above
and murky below
and between, a delicate and evanescent (as are all things) exemplar of the self-organization that underlies all:
And having seen close and clear, we are perhaps readier to absorb and be absorbed into the flat-lit, pastel-toned and geometrical simplicity of a snowy vignette
without impatience for glories soon enough to reappear:
Tranquil
in day that defines
at home with growth and form
Weightless
in night that re-knits
sojourning silent mists and stars
darkness scintillant
So
as ground shifts and seasons slide
may you with ease
find sense and sound footing where little appears
inspire in moist color to commune with deeper flows
dance delighted with moving spirits of other spheres
tease the onefold from artificed complexities
know open hand, comforting eye, place of natural belonging
hold and be held by all-that-is
Now
forever
until all awaken!
With best wishes and cautious hopes for a new year and a new reality…
Breathing in, I calm my body.
Breathing out, I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment
I know this is a wonderful moment.
–Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace
All that lives, on this planet, depends on oxygen to keep its metabolic fires alight. –All, that is, but the primordial and still vitally important orders for which it is toxic and which have, since the Great Oxygen Catastophe, therefore retreated to murky depths and anaerobic sludges. For the rest, ourselves and plants included, that element might be considered an enabler to organized life secondary only to carbon (most versatile of structural nodes) and water (universal solvent, general acid and base, thermal buffer, etc. etc.).
The air we need is made in the main by shallow-water algae and cyanobacteria, a minor third by land plants (from which, in turn, come most of the fuel we burn with it). Some sources stand between, with roots in the muck and crowns floating upon or stalking above the surface. The former include Nymphaea odorata;
the latter Nelumbo lutea
as well as escaped exotic cousins, all rich larders for valued pollinators and diverse other animalia, and a delight to multiple senses. This display of purity-from-defilement underlies representations of the Buddha on a lotus seat, and perhaps, by extension, the Sanskrit mantra Om mane padme hum.
Whether erect or afloat, the pads of either may collect splash or rain into a kind of pool-within-a-pool, a refuge large enough to host diverse mobile life-forms for a transitional visit
The lotus leaf, like Norton Juster’s Humbug, has the unusual property of being “superhydrophobic”—practically unwettable; with contact angle near 170º reducing adhered area below 1%, a droplet rolls around like a ball bearing,
Classical references to this “lotus effect” include
Who dedicates all actions to God without attachment
is unaffected by sin, as a lotus leaf by water.
– Bhagavad Gita Ch. 5, v.10
In the middle of this flooded field, one partially filled lotus pad stands out (if not up) not only for color and cleanliness, but also for the silvery shimmer of partial reflection at the water-air-leaf interface:
As with some other species residing at the water/air interface, the gas-exchanging stomata (“mouths”) of the lotus leaf lie atop rather than below. On a bright summer day, the otherwise-invisible exhalation is trapped by water’s high surface tension, in the main sliding laterally along a permanent air layer to where hydrostatic pressure lessens rather than forcing its way directly upward:
Closer inspection shows a bathtub-ring of pollen, dust and other debris left behind as the pool shrinks in hot sun; all this will be washed away when (if?) it rains again.
Same pad, in action:
Numerous and admirable are the flowers of land and water, herb and tree.
… I love only the lotus, which from filthy mud arises unstained
Laved by pure waters, yet not seductive
Freely open within; without erect, neither rambling nor branched
Distant, the fragrance more delicate
Slim, clean, upright
To be enjoyed from afar, not over-intimate …
Where are those who, like me, love the lotus?
Two planets meeting face to face,
One to the other cried “How sweet
If endlessly we might embrace,
And here for ever stay! how sweet
If Heaven a little might relent,
And leave our light in one light blent!”
But through that longing to dissolve
In one, the parting summons sounded.
Immutably the stars revolve,
By changeless orbits each is bounded;
Eternal union is a dream,
And severance the world’s law supreme.
–Muhammad Iqbal
Islands with shared roots
Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves in labyrinths of coral caves
The echo of a distant tide comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine
And no one showed us to the land
And no one knows the wheres or whys
But something stirs and something tries
And starts to climb towards the light
Sun stands, turns
Persephone yearns – we chill Vesta slakes dim embers, kindles fresh
Holly yields to Oak
Rhiannon ambles the dreamscapes:
A pax on all our houses
The phoenix hope
can wing her way through the desert skies
and still defying fortune’s spite
revive from ashes and rise.
~ Cervantes (?)
Zhuang Zhou dreamed as a butterfly flying free, knowing no other. Awakening, found himself human. Now: am I Zhuang Zhou, who dreamt he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming I am Zhuang Zhou?
The ballet centers on the journey of its hero, Prince Ivan. While hunting in the forest,
he strays into the magical realm of the evil Koschei…whose immortality is preserved
by keeping his soul in a magic egg hidden in a casket.
Ivan chases and captures the Firebird…she begs for her life, and he spares her.
As a token of thanks, she offers him an enchanted feather
that he can use to summon her should he be in dire need…
When Koschei sends his minions after Ivan, he summons the Firebird.
She intervenes, bewitching the monsters
and making them dance an elaborate, energetic dance…
and with the spell broken…the magical creatures
that Koschei held captive are freed and the palace disappears.
All of the “real” beings…awaken and…celebrate their victory.
Forasmuch as all passeth, so ariseth all anew
Be of humours mild and hope abounding
And note well, who multiply division
Art chaff before That which unites
Accordingly illumined
In all times and climes
Need none aspire alone
As a year prime (if neither choice, select nor standard) Surrenders to one less odd and betimes more even May attractors abdicate their strangeness While you, yours and theirs Enjoy being alike factor and beneficiary Of a progressive return to peace and plenty.
I eat and drink and eat again
until one day eaten become other eyes skin tongue
and again
and back to earth and air
and one day, an old star dying and a new one born
Where do I begin? Where begins the great wet world?
Ichor and ambrosia
From siege perilous
the aspirant goes forth
bright sword, numinous corps
guided by dream
stomach empty, chest full
Faces the beast, himself
returns victorious (or not)
brings wisdom to his tribe
glory to his line
From warm dark earth
go I forth
black-daggered, alone
the dance of she-fellows my lode
to beauty blind
Face down gale and beak
wend home, panniers dusty-gilt
crop of liquid light
to feed my family
But we are granted room
and what I must cast off
I take back within me
to sinew the leap
fletch the bolt
clear the vision
steady the change
Equipoise
See me without fear
I am but a small thing, a metaphor, a legendary caution
yet well-crafted for my rôle:
taste air, drink sun, hunt meadow and pool, abide in earth
Curved, a bow; straight, the arrow
My tail I do not bite
rather, from your garden sweep vermin
(and all else I can catch and swallow)
Let dawn itself devour each night
spring, each winter
beetles, my skin (ere I invite them within)
and I, the circling seasons
until they me
With winter relatively benign and safely (?) passed, the curtain rises
on an at last-full pond and a typically atypical New England spring, revealing both broad and intimate vistas of calm and content:
Mute swan
With temperatures departing in both directions from a notional norm, wind-pumping and variable water level (but not, in this case, aquatic mammals) keep open a breathing hole
in slush that nightly re-freezes
—though not, sadly, breath enough to sustain all who lurk beneath, even with chill-slowed metabolisms. So when the ice clears, placid waters
Decay being much retarded by cold, this can lead to unproductive confusion when incontinent enthusiasm trumps situational awareness:
But the cycle continues,
as cycles do;
and with advancing warmth, other poikilotherms emerge to share space in the sun:
The peaceable coexistence of the mutually inedible
Plants, too, return or arrive anew: from root, shoot
Parrotia persica
or seed, with last year’s shed husks
helping to warm and moisten tender new growth. A few, desiccated in autumn to concentrate antifreeze sap, simple re-inflate, like this improbably native prickly-pear:
Fresh snow is often an ideal medium on which diverse passages may be recorded and revealed, though their makers may remain mysterious unless actually witnessed. In this case, paw-prints are fairly distinct, but the rest? Sweeping tail, run-on landing, violent sneeze?
And more of same,
for a short span resolving into a reasonably coherent trail, possibly of a small fox, large raccoon or one of the few remaining feral cats.
While too blurred for a positive identification, toe marks at least indicate (unless the wily one had its shoes on backward) direction of motion. Back up-trail a few feet is the imprint of commotion: with only one set of prints exiting, reflecting either air-to-ground combat or a single-body collision of some kind.
Looking yet further back and up reveals the misadventure, if not identity, of the sojourner. An optimistic stroll from rough woods, hopping over a plow berm onto the apparently easier passage of a paved way, where fresh powder conceals slick ice:
Disorienting and embarrassing, perhaps, but apparently without serious consequences. We should all be so lucky—and perhaps, as relatively brittle organisms with further to fall, more cautious.
The shortest day of any northern year is, of course, the winter solstice. But modern society values efficiency over adherence to natural rhythm, and we have separated ourselves from solar time in favor of the normalized hyperfine tick of cesium and hydrogen atoms. (–And then blocked the world into large and absurdly large artifical time zones, based in turn on an antique and entirely artificed division.) In consequence of that and our planet’s orbital inclination and eccentricity, earliest sunset occurs around Pearl Harbor Day, and latest sunrise when holiday hangovers have dissipated a couple of days after the new year opens. Yet the solstice remains shortest in sum and difference.
But while days are already visibly longer, seasonal lag means that thermometers may have further to fall. New Englanders know too well that the harshest nor’easters, branch-snappingest ice storms, highest heating bills and most heart-straining shoveling may still lie ahead—perhaps even well into calendrical spring.
Our forebears understood these things. While hierarchical religions might tie key observances to solstice and equinox (often overlaying newer ritual on the most ancient of holy days), primal cultures and their relict practices often placed equal or greater importance on the cross-quarter days. And with the passing of Beltane,
Lughnasadh
and Samhain (or All Hallows’ Day),
we are at last immobilized by dread Imbolc:
But just as the taijitu shows the apotheosis of any extreme to bear the emerging seed of its opposite, the frozen tail of one year begets the burgeoning of the next. So appears among intermittent snows this avatar of Brìghde (Brigid), with moss-crowned nimbus,
Lincoln has always been a town of volunteers. Lincoln’s Minutemen were first to arrive on April 19th, 1775. A few years earlier, the town itself had been conceived, negotiated for, assembled and established by a handful of families committed to local community. Lincoln as we know it now—preserving certain virtues lost to many other mature municipalities, and by others never known—is in great part the stacked fruit of devoted civic service by a few visionaries, master-planners and donors in each generation of the past five or six. (–Of “donors” more now, with assessed cost-sharing displacing the generosity of the resident 1%.) A bit more than halfway along that timeline, one local steward of an ancient and honorable lineage built Farrar Pond.
Back to our first first-responders, the National Park Service (may it persist through all adversity) informs us that
“… the Massachusetts Provincial Congress … called upon the towns … [to form] new, special companies called minute men. Minute Men were different from the militia in the following ways:
1. While service in the militia was required by law, minute men were volunteers.
2. The minute men trained far more frequently than the militia. … Because of this serious commitment of time, they were paid. One shilling per drill was average. …
3. Minute Men were expected to keep their arms and equipment with them at all times, and in the event of an alarm, be ready to march at a minute’s warning – hence they were called “minute men.”
Lincoln of a few decades past could, in most respects, be managed with little overt formality. Closer community ties, sparser population (a mere thousand by 1900, ca. 2500 in 1950, then tripling with suburban growth and the development of the Hanscom complex) plus a safe, sane, less-gray population and nil industry minimized homeland security needs. The police-and-fire station that preceded our spacious and functional current Public Safety Building was bungalow-sized and, starting with a single chief for both of these vital services, lightly staffed.
Payroll was contained in part by a quaint and personable institution, the volunteer on-call fireman. Reliable citizens with reliable automobiles, they would roll out of bed at any hour and in all weathers to meet the full-timers at a fire scene, and were paid their shilling for each such appearance.
This cadre of latter-day minutemen got its marching orders not by cell-phone or internet (neither existed), nor yet by expensive VHF walkie-talkie or cumbersome and indiscriminate CB radio. Rather, a fire’s approximate location was broadcast via serial blasts of a powerful klaxon—the same one that would have warned of impending tornado or incoming Soviet bombers—high atop Town (now Bemis) Hall.
With a dark and quiet town divided by few roads, only approximate location information was needed—nothing like ordnance grid coordinates or Zip+4, much less the new Eircode that specifies each dwelling. In any event, such could not have worked in a town that had yet to assign house numbers. Instead, supported by a continuity of family, property tenure and neighborly awareness now largely of memory, the main landmarks were the homesteads. And each edition of the exclusive Town phone book included a card-stock insert that looked like this:
Newer subdivisions somewhat complicated the picture. So where major intersections rated a “prestige” two-digit location, a complex development required a range of four-digit numbers. 51 was Lee’s Bridge, 511 perhaps the closest old Engine #1 could approach Farrar Pond for a top-up should the hydrants freeze, and 6112-6132 the new Farrar Pond condominia.
Woven through these simple lines is layer upon layer of history, both social and technological. How many of those places are still so-named, so-occupied? why was the emergency number 259-8111? It seems that when the Lincoln telephone exchange was established, with an operator-staffed switching office next to Center School (now Town Hall), line allocations began with CLearwater 9-8000. Standard rotary-dial telephones took many more tense seconds to dial a string of high numbers than of low, so instead of a row of 0s or 8s, as many 1s as possible was the preference for urgency. (Businesses were happy to take the naughts.) Like low license-plate numbers, the antiquity of a family or address was suggested by the number: 8000s expanded to 9000s, and then—as wealth and techno-employment drove both need and means to provide separate lines for children, fax machines, dial-up modems—the number of numbers multiplied far beyond the count of homes, or even residents. Post-breakup deregulation of networks and a growing preference for mobile or VoIP over land-line telephony led to a different kind of ownership and portability, so “Lincoln” numbers now show up all over the country, perhaps even internationally.
A smaller town was more connected and curious—dare one say “nosy”? Ask not for whom the bell tolls, but ask around the morning after for who escaped unscathed, who suffered loss, how one’s family might assist another with the aftermath. So we all “tuned in” when foghorn blaats rolled across the landscape, knew our own neighborhood’s codes, and sometimes looked up others as the signals arrived. (And were grateful if we lived near the edge of earshot.)
And some winters brought gladder tidings, for children if less so for parents and administrators: buried at the bottom was the real headline: 3-3-3, sounded thrice well before the bus was due, meant snow day and no school.
~ Suitable images/recordings of former fire station(s) or klaxon are welcome, and will be published with due credit. ~
Bird and small mammal alike often choose eminence over shelter, or (when available) both:
Relaxing on a warmish afternoon,
keeping curious eye on photographers
or conducting a visible-but-private conversation,
up may provide more and safer options than down. But food often obeys the law of universal gravitation, and concentrates at the thin boundary between earth and sky. Here gleaners may congregate by necessity, preference, or the relative safety of the herd:
In general, however, adults take their meals in solitary fashion. So where a Cyanocitta cristata prefers picking the bones of its cousin Gallus gallus domesticus
to a sweeter but less calorie- and protein-rich vegetarian alternative,
Sciurus carolinensis is quick to snag the treasure and steal up and away to enjoy it all alone:
