Place changes us fundamentally as people. People change as their place changes. Our habits, our emotions, our ways of knowing, all have roots in our biome and social geography. I’ve thrown myself into the waters of Gitchi Gumee each day for the past ten days, and those days have changed my mental space. More on this to come, hopefully on Wednesday. For now, enjoy your place….
A dear friend recently told me “I love knowing things by the way I don’t know them” as we spoke about differentiating species of lilies. I loved that phrase deeply, and I’m still trying to find all of its meaning. To know something by the ways in which you do not know it is an action. You are actively seeking what you you do not know about a thing, without seeking to answer those unknowns. I am simply wondering “what will the color of this lily be?” or “what are the parts of their flower and how do they react to the midsummer sun?”, and then I am letting the lily tell me in their own time. This attitude has some similarity to the scientific method I think.
The curiosity of a naturalist is bounded not by the discovery of a thing, but by the rediscovery of that thing over and over, as our perspective of the thing is changed by time. Year after year, my observation of the lilies in my yard is changed and given depth by my own sorrows and wonders, as well as the minute details of jetstream chaos, temperature differences, and forest canopy coverage. This could be considered a variation of phenology, keeping track of the year-to-year changes in nature’s timing as we track our own changes as well. To me, phenology is the realization that our own perception of nature’s changes affects those very same changes.
The best emotional state with which to make phenological observations is with a cool and rational mind, looking for the first bloom of the marsh marigold the instant its petals unfold! But that same rational mind tells you little about your relationship to that marsh marigold, or everything that is happening around it. You sure could wait beside the wetland boardwalk all night, waiting for the petals to open before the morning light. Or you can find yourself on an adventure, and suddenly remember “ah yes, I’m looking for Marsh Marigold today, who were they again?”. By allowing ourselves to be curious about the mysteries around us, we may lose some scientific pinpoint accuracy, but we may discover so many more connections between all these little things we may have never seen before.
Knowing a thing by the ways we do not know it means simply asking questions, not expecting an answer, and loving that thing through the mystery of what we ask. To love something or an interaction of things for its mysteries is a practice of honorable interaction with the ecological system of our Home. I know Gitchi Gummi by the way I never know what she will give me on any given day. By the way I don’t know what is around the next bend along her rocky and winding shores. Just as I purposefully forget the color of the lilies in my yard, year after year. I do this so I may hold that surprise each time it blooms, and may love again those petals, as their ornage petal unfurl to the mid-summer sun or those Superior waves as they crash about a mysterious pointe. I invite you to find yourself in boundless surprise, by allowing yourself to never know too much, and to always forget one little thing.
Lake Superior sunsets are loud, particularly in this time of year. We are between the tumult of the winter with its night time winds, and the songs of summer, with the birds and the frogs and the wolves all calling to each other. We are even before the Spring, with its sounds of people, out and about once again. We are in the inbetween time, when the sun thaws the top of the snow, and the night freezes it over again. The ground itself becomes a sheet of icy mystery. And we as humans project our own stories and anxieties into that icy layer of barren snow.
The sound of a Lake sunset is loud.
It tells stories of the traditions of college students
biking down to the rust belt breakwater
on a first date. Stories
of fire spinners and lovers
shy together
in tender moments by the creek.
Never in the same spot from year to year
As the creek shifts between channels.
The Lake sunset tells booming stories in echoes of colors
But not the colors themselves
Giving space for new stories
New kisses under cotton scarves
And so the colors are ever brighter and sweeter in their memory
Until they go grey in their eyes.
And then dark.
In one sense this is the season of greatest hope for the future, when the sap is just about to run and buds just about to bloom. Then again it is the season of greatest waiting, in anticipation for the sounds. And the silence seems timeless. The sunset and moonrise the only solace of time moving forward. All potential still.
Gossamer Naturalist 