Come Rain or Shine

We've been famously short on moisture here in California recently, with 2013 now having the distinction of being the driest year on record. According to tree ring comparisons, climatologists say it may also have been the driest year in five centuries. But no amount of statistical analysis can make a dent in the rainfall deficit.

The drought makes for compelling headlines to accompany shocking images of vastly shrunken water reservoirs and dire predictions of produce price spikes and shortages. Farmers are planting 200,000 less acres this season and in an effort to prevent disease and insect infestation, tens of thousands of mature drought-stressed almond trees are being ripped out of the ground. But while these stories generate sympathy and discussion, they too cannot produce any rain. No amount of knowledge, research or prediction will - all we can do is wait.

On the clear days, I sit outside on the deck in shirtsleeves soaking up the midday sun with a chilled glass of wine and a salad. The weather is perfect for tackling yard work - warm with just a hint of breeze. We rake up dried leaves and cut down dead limbs, hauling everything to a burn pile at the back of the property. I mow the lush green lower part of the yard, where what little rain we've had tends to settle. The scent of narcissus and daffodils rise up around me as I wage my never-ending war against the weed sprouts in the flower beds.

On the infrequent rainy days, I huddle up on the couch under a fleece blanket in my warmest pajamas with a bowl of hot chili. Low gray clouds hide the mountain peaks out the living room window as droplets pelt the skylight above my head. I catch up on my reading while the cat naps in my lap and when the rain really starts coming down I pause to admire the sheer white curtains of moisture drifting across a backdrop of dark tree trunks in the neighbor’s yard. The fire in the wood stove burns all day long as I feed it pieces of the oak trees we cut down last spring.

They say we will not get enough rain the rest of this season to make up for the past few months of sun. Towns around the state need to ration water and so people should expect fewer showers, parched gardens and dirtier cars. No one dares to talk about wildfire season yet. Instead we talk about forecasts and miracles, hoping each new inch that falls will take us closer to that mythical yearly average.

In spite of all the worries and fears, I find myself appreciating more these days. The hot sun on the back of my neck in the middle of winter. The daffodils that sprouted and bloomed despite the lack of moisture. But most especially, those glorious days when the clouds gather and darken overhead, releasing their precious moisture. I breathe in the smell of damp earth as I walk around the yard with my camera, trying to capture the ephemeral beauty of the fallen rain.

One September Day

Autumn arrived on the afternoon breeze.

I heard it approach as it threaded
Through the tops of the dusky gray pines
Lacing between their densely needled boughs
With the lilting ebb and flow of a hushed roar.

It softly touched my cheek before slipping
Down the length of my bare arms
Taking with it any trace of accumulated heat and dust
As a coolness spread across my skin.

The scent of the sea was carried in its gusts which swept
From the coast and across a wide valley to these hills
Conjuring memories of damp salt tinged days
Along the cloudy shores of Monterey.

I watched it glide through the weary oaks who sighed
As they released their pale summer scorched leaves
Lofting them into the reinvigorated air
To celebrate the moment the world changed.

Transitions

My husband made an interesting observation while we were walking along a dirt road flanked by rainbow colored maple trees earlier this fall. He noted that unlike flowers, which have adapted their forms and colors to fit the function of reproduction, the particolored leaves decorating the trees each autumn serve no functional purpose at all. The shades of green that we normally see are the result of food production, but in the fall when the trees begin their transition into dormancy and so stop producing food, a tapestry of gold, scarlet, terracotta and plum suddenly begins to emerge. Isn’t it miraculous? What a gift to the human soul that the trees set the world alight with their beauty just as the long dark of winter is settling in.

Such times of transition are ripe with anticipation. The resulting energy fills with air around us and charges us with emotions. Sometimes we welcome these feelings – the first rainy fall day that generates the desire to curl up on the couch under a blanket with a warm mug of cider in hand. Our first collective glimpse of the bride as she steps into view and begins her slow walk down the aisle. The joyous moment of reunion with an old friend after too many years gone by. These are the moments that remind us how sweet life can be.

But transitions can set off emotions that are not always so welcome. There are times when the crush of the unknown weighs heavily on our worried hearts. The night the rain won’t stop – it just keeps falling and falling, and so the water keeps rising. Waiting for the test results, as the known world hangs in the balance. The point at which the decision is made, whether by choice or by force, and tentative steps are taken down an unfamiliar path. These are the moments that remind us how fragile life can be.

But just as the coziness of that first chill fall day fills the soul with the sensation of pleasure, so too does that first summer-like spring day, when we cast off our layers and drink in the sunshine. We know warmth, because we know cold. The beauty of love and reunion are more palpable because we know loss. Tradition comforts all the more because we know the uncertainty of change. This oppositeness provides the frame of reference for all we know in the world.

What we sometimes lose sight of is that those times of transition we resist out of fear, are also the times that unite us together. We tend to each other’s needs in times of sorrow, just as we celebrate our joys – with a heart wide open to the emotional spectrum of what it means to be human. Compassion is cultivated most readily when we support others during times of difficult transition. At these times, we are all reminded of who we hold most dear, and what really matters most. We come to know the essential aspects of our life that do not change, even as chaos is swirling all around. Perhaps it is the tenuousness that makes this one life so precious.

There are times when the only thing we can do is love. All the words have been said, there are no new ideas to impart and the answers are suspended in time. Somewhere out beyond the fear and worry lies the reason behind our anguish – we love. In this life we will all know pain and suffering, but we will also know love, because at the heart of it all this is what we are. Isn’t it miraculous? That in such fragile moments our true nature can be revealed. Even in the darkest times it can set the world alight with its beauty.

Seeing the World in a New Light

I am obsessed with light. It started in college when I took an art appreciation class and learned about the Impressionist movement. The idea that a painter could paint not an object or scene, but rather the reflections of light, created a whole new way of seeing. Static objects within the landscape became dynamic as my awareness of sun-shifted shadows and highlights intensified their textures and colors. Sunlight unlocks the door to an infinitely more beautiful world.

Around this same time period I began pursuing photography as a hobby, learning to consider light as I composed my shots. I’m not a very technical photographer, partly because I don’t have the patience to learn about and practice the exacting art of manual focus and light control, but digital photography has allowed me to experiment and develop my creativity. To compensate for the restrictions of a point and shoot camera, I began playing with sunlight by filtering or blocking it with objects in the shot to control any resulting lense flares. I remember the first time I raised my camera up to the petals of a back-lit flower to take an extreme close-up while on a hike in the Tetons. The resulting photo gave me a miraculous new appreciation for the natural world.

As we meet our own needs for hunger and thirst throughout the day, it’s easy to forget that the plants and trees around us are constantly taking in nourishment as well. We gardeners know it more than most, especially out west, but even then how often do we really take the time to appreciate the systems that give life to the plant? I’m not a biologist by training, so it took me completely by surprise that night when I got home from hiking and looked at my photo on the computer. The sunlight had highlighted an intricate tracing of veins across the surface of that deep purple larkspur petal, and refracted to reveal a sparkling translucence that literally took my breath away. There are few things more beautiful in this world than a flower bathed in sunlight...

Ever since that day, I’ve been obsessed with documenting the delicate inner workings of leaves and flowers through my photographs. One of my favorite places to be is under a deciduous tree at midday when the sunlight is streaming down, illuminating the canopy of leaves above me. There is a quality to that vivid saturation of colorful light, which makes me feel intensely alive and keenly aware of the life pulsating around me. My body and the tree, we both absorb this invisible bombardment of photons and turn it into physical nourishment. We both move fluid through our veins as a means of surviving and thriving. We breathe in symbiotic partnership, each sustaining the other. In this moment I am reminded that it's not so much a matter of reconnecting with nature as it is simply removing the layers that insulate us from each other. The connection itself is impossible to sever...

  

This luminous way of seeing requires only a simple shift of perspective for wondrous details to instantly emerge. All you have to do is let your eyes be guided by the light... 

For the Love of Trees

Do you have a favorite time of year when you find the trees especially beautiful? Myself, I can't decide between the delicate blooms and translucent greens of spring, leafy cool shade during the summer, vibrantly colored canopies in the fall, and the structurally striking bare months of winter. As I learn to navigate the world more frequently with all five senses engaged, I continue to be in awe of the diversity of trees that surround me everywhere I go. How blessed we are to have such beauty in our lives...

On this perfect June day in the Sierra Nevada, the vanilla spiced air is filled with steady birdsong and a tinge of coolness from the occasional breeze. Standing on the gently sloping forest floor at its base, I crane my neck to gaze up the trunk of a Sequoia tree. I feel the soft and spongy thickness of its bark under my fingertips and hear the hollow sounding thunk as I pat it firmly with my open palm. The resulting cloud of stirred dust hangs suspended in a shaft of sunlight that streams through the canopy.

Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in Sequoia National Park

The crisp clatter of dancing cottonwood leaves sprinkles down from above as strong sunshine strikes the drying grass. The earthy sweet scent of freshly fallen leaves wafts up from the warm ground as I lie on my back on the picnic table looking into the cerulean sky. This beauty astounds me to the point where everything else is stripped away - thoughts, words, memories, ideas - and I am left with only an awareness that I am alive on this glorious day and that there is nothing more in the world I could want or need than this moment.

Eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides) at Rattlesnake Springs

Long thin shadows stretch across the wind-blown snow as the last few hours of winter sunlight linger on the horizon. The interlaced silhouette of trunks and branches filters out almost all perceptible traces of warmth. A sense of cold, hard stillness and of life delayed makes everything feel sharper - the brittle vegetation, the powdery air, and the angular bareness of the trees, which will be lush with life and color in just a few months. For now the landscape sleeps with only the tracks of hardy mammals and the ripples of wind skimming across its surface.  

Mixed forest of deciduous trees at Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge

Morning sunlight is just starting to creep over the tops of the rocks in Hidden Valley spreading a warm glow over the twisted shape of a dead juniper tree. Reincarnated as a home for cavity nesting birds, food for insects, and lookout for aerial hunters, this tree will live on in its new form until gravity moves it into the next phase of rebirth. I admire its unintentional beauty and sculptural grace, hard pressed to fathom how any human artist could perfect upon this natural form.

Single-leaf pinyon pine (Pinus monophylla) Joshua Tree National Park

The rain filters down through the canopy in a fine mist as I climb up the path from the stream bed below. Towering in front of me is an architectural mass of columns and buttresses simultaneously sinking down into the earth and arching overhead. The energy present in this rainforest is palpable. Plants are rooting, clinging, inching and unfurling in every direction, crowding the edges of the paved trail with anticipation. The strangler fig, in particular, has perfected the art of thriving in a highly competitive environment - it attaches to a host tree for support and eventually surrounds and absorbs it. In this place it is not so easy to forget that life and death are two sides of the same coin.

Strangler fig, 'Akaka Falls State Park

"Each moment of the year has its own beauty, a picture which was never before and shall never be seen again." 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Coastal live oaks, East Bay area regional park

Almond orchard, Highway 198 near Lemoore, California

Waihou Springs Trail, above Makawao on Maui

Aspen (Populus tremuloides), Mineral King District of Sequoia National Park

Palm tree, Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden near Hilo, Hawai'i

Ingrid and Steven's tree, Burnsville, Minnesota

Interior live oak (Quercus wislizeni), Sequoia National Park

Oak tree in snow, Sequoia National Park

Deciduous forest, Alden, Minnesota

Western white pine (Pinus monticola), Tioga Pass in Yosemite National Park