A Moment of Zen
All of us here at The Mudflats have our own ways of blowing off steam, and trying to keep the blood pressure closer to the double digits. While Linda Kellen Biegel finds her Zen place at Lowe’s, and digging in the dirt, and Shannyn finds hers on the end of a fishing pole, I find mine wandering around in the woods with a camera and a dog. So, that’s what I did to take a little interlude from the election madness. I figured you might also need a little mental sorbet, so I decided to take you along with me. Ready?
It’s an interesting time of year, because it’s universally considered to be pretty ugly. It’s not really warm enough for a t-shirt, but it’s not really cold enough for a coat. You want to go outside, but everything is either mud or dust or slush. But, I am of the belief that there are beautiful things to see everywhere, even during ‘breakup’, so I went out to share the most beautiful things in my valley from the ugliest time of the year.
This is the most exciting part. Sure, it makes mud, but it’s liquid water! LIQUID! We still get a crust of ice over standing puddles at night, but the creek is open, and the springs are flowing, and there is distinct babbling going on.
Another characteristic feature of the spring landscape are the plentiful deposits of moose nuggets. They happen in winter too, but this time of year the dark color absorbs heat from the sun, and you can see them melting into the snow. Who needs a robin to know spring is on the way.
The forest floor is carpeted with last years greenery, which is now this year’s brownery. It still has its own charm.
The big picture really isn’t too much to see. You’d never find it on a postcard – just lots of soggy cold wetness, and the whole pallet of drab on the end-of-winter color wheel. And big picture drabness is exactly why we’re going to look at…
…the small picture. This whole frame is about the size of a 50 cent piece. I had fun with my favorite macro lens. All these pictures were taken with it. I also enjoyed messing around with some photo editing to accentuate the beautiful patterns and colors in this unassuming little piece of lichen.
Fiddling with the shutter speed makes even the most ordinary little meltwater rivulet look magical.
Who said death is ugly? This is last year’s cow parsnip. All the flowers are gone, and the seeds have blow off, leaving this beautiful skeleton that survived the snowiest winter on record in these parts, and some pretty impressive wind to boot.
Here’s a cow parsnip stem. I like their hollowness. You’d never imagine that they could hold up all the flower heads they do, but somehow they manage it. You can’t really enjoy them close up in the summer either, as many people (myself included) have a terrible reaction to the green sticky stems and get very painful and long-lasting blisters.
Here’s another of our beautiful summer tormenters – Devil’s Club. You can tell where it gets the name. Nobody escapes reaction to this one. No matter how you try to get rid of the stuff, it seems to spring up anyway. With enormous Jurassic Park style leaves, and cones of vermillion berries in the fall, at least the thing that gave you thousands of tiny festering welts was nice to look at.
Much is still alive, of course, including the spruce – the most dominant evergreen thing around. I found a nice one, with a space under the branches, perfect for sitting. It was dry and comfortable, so I decided to sit for a while. Fortunately, I was surrounded by interesting things to shoot without even having to get up. And yes, I did say I brought a dog, but Buf is in high octane mode, not only because she’s excited to have company, but because there are all kinds of interesting smells around. She is having fun being Stealth Dog. I keep hearing her, and I’ll catch an occasional orange flash go by, but she’s not in the mood to hang out and relax. She does that the other 23 hours.
Just as the living trees mark the landscape, so do the dead ones. This ex-tree is in its final reclamation process. If you reached out and squeezed it, it would feel like a dry sponge.
And whatever these are, they’re the hardiest little plants around. It still gets below freezing at night, and yet, here’s this little guy just hanging out, and acting like it’s summer. Fake it ’til you make it, li’l sprout!
AHA! The Holy Grail of Spring! I found buds! In about six weeks, this rosebush will not only be full of leaves, but it’s intoxicating pink flowers will be releasing their glorious scent far and wide. It will be much harder to walk through this area then. The fast and furious race is on!
AHA, again! Stealth dog is peeking at me to see what I’m up to. I feel like I’ve managed to get a picture of Bigfoot (the Grey Man in Alaska), or the Loch Ness monster. She’s off again in a flash.
And if you’re not particular about size, that gorgeous emerald green that will be ubiquitous in a few short weeks is proudly on display in miniature version. If you get close enough, this moss looks like a little jungle. Each stalk is about an inch and a half tall.
Here’s another almost-reclaimed tree, but this one is grey, and a bit harder than the last one. Those two little pieces of lichen look like trees too, don’t they?
You can hardly find a spot that doesn’t look like the perfect subject for a still life, if you get close enough.
And the Survivor Award goes to this contestant. I think it’s a current. When you think back on what savage weather we’ve had since last September, I really don’t know how this one hung on.
Here’s another bud that’s even further along. It won’t be long before it pops.
I finally get up from my spot, and head back to the house.
Along the way, I come to a patch of spongy tundra full of mosses, and little alpine plants, and droppings from the spruce trees.
And I come across the second-hand moose graveyard. A couple years ago, Buf found an old, bleached out moose skeleton in a nearby bog, and began bringing it home, bone by bone. One day a leg, the next day a rib, then the pelvis. She’d bring them over to this corner of the yard and chew to her heart’s content. Here’s a piece that escaped her. Not sure which one it was.
Again, if you’re not picky about size there is a riot of color to be seen in the drabbest time of year. That gorgeous yellow lichen is a little bigger than a pencil eraser.
A final shot of a spruce before I headed inside. I’ll do some more of these as the season advances so you can see the changes. I have a feeling the way things are going in the world of politics, we’ll be needing more than a few mental health breaks…
This year, because the warm weather settled in so early, we’ve had a super-abundant crop of dandelions. Right now the earliest are in their grey fuzzy phase and the younger ones are brazenly yellow. The only time I’ve ever properly appreciated dandelions were the springs when the bunny family lived at the top of our yard. Mom and Pop would come out in the evening, munch some dandelion blossoms or fuzzies, stems and all, and then supervise the baby bunnies as they romped about. The bunny family has moved on, unfortunately (did someone tell them about the beagles?) but the dandelions have stayed.
And that’s precisely why I have a bunnypalooza in my backyard every morning and every evening!
I have a lovely crop of dandelions that apparently comes with a neon sign, invisible to the human eye, that announces ‘Salad bar is open!’ to all of the neighborhood long-eared fuzzballs. The five or so that visit my garden daily appear to be rather cheeky and unafraid of critters of the two-legged variety. I had a chat with one up close and personal when we reviewed the Rules of My Garden which he graciously agreed to abide by. The contractors who have been working on my house have commented on how close the bunnies will approach them, ignoring all the banging, sawing and other assorted noise. Apparently they feel the need to supervise the work that’s being done while I’m not at home, although I’ve yet to receive an official report. The men seemed to be a little wary of them, although, as far as I know, they are NOT trained attack bunnies.
But then again…
What, no Monty Python bunnies among the lot?
We actually found a bunny in our yard back in 1996. She wasn’t wild. Someone had turned loose the bunnies they had when they didn’t want them any more. But she showed up on the day we had the tree removal guys here. So we caught her so she wouldn’t get hit by the trees they were taking down. We tried to find the owners, thinking she was lost, and then decided she was going to be ours.
So we ended up with a lovely pet rabbit for nine years. RIP, Ms. Twitchel, fondly known as Twit (because sometimes she was).
AKM you sure do know how to take a picture that captures the beauty of the world around you large and small. Thank you for sharing your walk with us.
So beautiful ,well DOne AKM. For my zen I sometimes turn to CSN & Y I’m listening to this piece of beauty as I look at yours again. Slainte to all!
The Lee Shore
by David Crosby
from the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album “4 Way Street”
Wheel gull spin and glide … you’ve got no place to hide
‘Cause you don’t need one
All along the Lee shore
Shells lie scattered in the sand
Winking up like shining eyes, at me
From the sea
Here is one like sunrise
It’s older than you know
It’s still lying there where some careless wave
Forgot it long ago
When I awoke this morning
I dove beneath my floating home
Down below her graceful side in the turning tide
To watch the sea fish roam
There I heard a story
From the sailors of the Sandra Marie
There’s another island a day’s run away from here
And it’s empty and free
From here to Venezuela
There’s nothing more to see
Than a hundred thousand islands
flung like jewels upon the sea
For you and me
Sunset smells of dinner
Women are calling at me to end my tales
But perhaps I’ll see you, the next quiet place
I furl my sails
Since my earlier comment seems to have disappeared, I’ll repeat it.
AKM, while you are now an Alaskan through and through, it’s clear you never lost your New Yorker’s sense of humor (rather dry, like many good wines). I love arch remarks like “who needs a robin?” and recognize your roots.
Death can be beautiful; it’s part of every life. What makes it ugly is fear.
Some of my favorite vacation pictures are the closeups of things that the other tourists missed because they were already looking for the next big attraction.
I’m very jealous of your wonderful camera and the wonderful eye you use to find your subjects. I was planning to get a new camera this spring now that mine is starting to fail, but the new tires, new dishwasher, garage roof and new siding took precedence. Couldn’t quite justify a new camera when the rain was dripping from the middle of my kitchen ceiling!
Just hope my old camera can hang in there a few more months…
If one was to examine the ten persons nearest for their common cultural flaw it might be this: that too many fail to understand the scale of our existence. It is not being lost in the macro or micro but an inability to understand the need for a complete range of understanding and more specifically how critical it is to be able to focus both near and far. I find visitors to my part of Western Alaska mention how flat it is out here. I usually just chuckle and later if time is available take them for a walk on the “flat” tundra.
I have spent hours watching one square foot of tundra and dare anyone to count all the plants and creatures in said square. I have been at a headlands if a watershed with one hundred miles of undulating hills before me with a small map and a sense of adventure to match the scale before me, once again, I dare you to narrow ones focus, in order to understand it all.
M. Paul
I have always been particularly conscious of color. I’m not sure if I studied art in college because of that interest or if my art training spurred the interest – chicken or egg?
Anyway, while I’ve never been to your part of Alaska, I have been to Denali and flown up to Coldfoot/Wiseman. From a distance, I was fascinated by the colors of the tundra, with their subtle shading and earthy tones. They reminded me of a beautifully rich tapestry that was made with threads that only barely differed in hues but created a depth you couldn’t get with a single color.
I’ve never spent hours watching a square foot of tundra, but since I thoroughly enjoy spending an afternoon staring at the corner of my backyard (even when the birds are nowhere to be found and the chipmunks are taking a nap), I would likely enjoy sitting next to you watching your square!
Wow. Gorgeous, I envy all the water Alaska has. Colorado is already in water restrictions and fire bans, most of the snowpack is gone. 🙁
ah,
Thanks .
yesterday i saw green grass shoots and buds ready to burst down in town- and then-
it snowed ever so briefly up at my place in the evening.
thanks for the walk AKM. i needed that breath of fresh air and a closer look at the small wonders of nature. takes me back to the days when my young eyes noticed everything.
Thanks AKM that was a wonderful respite from all what we have been viewing these past daze. I must remember to not get worked up an BREATH.
Mmm, I do feel better after looking at all those photos. I had my own moment of zen yesterday when I went over to Camp Sealth on Vashon Island. I found an excuse to go and I’m so glad I did. I hadn’t been over there for over five years – we used to be there two or three times a year when the girls were in Camp Fire. Lovely, beautiful and peaceful. I’ll have to do it more often.
Thank you, AKM, for sharing the beauty of your walk with us. It’s extraordinary.
It’s obvious from this love of the minutiae of the natural world that you’re Alaskan through and through. However, that dry sense of humor is SO Noo Yawk (who needs a robin … ?). Your roots are showing, 😉 😉 😉 🙂 🙂 🙂 and I’m not talking about your hair (which is obviously natural). And I agree, death can be beautiful; it’s part of life.
Merci, gracias, arrigato, obrigada, grazie, danke, tack, etc.
I love your photos!
Have you seen the Lytro camera? I imagine you could do amazing things with one, if you need a mildly expensive toy.
The Lytro is a whole new concept in cameras; rather than focusing on one depth, it takes in all the light and vectors, and you can shift the focal point infinite times on the computer screen.
Here’s one to play with, that I took in our garden: http://pictures.lytro.com/dkleeman/pictures/107549
(I have no interest in Lytro, aside from being intrigued by the technology and loving mine!)
Okay.
I’m gonna go for a walk.
Take a break.
I’m comfortably convinced it is needed.
Thank you for this.
Nice. Springtime in Alaska is always nice. It’s reviving especially if it follows a cold, cold winter. Thank you for the pictures.
Here’s to..The Circle..around and within..us all. Life rests..then begets more life..with what we have left behind..and so..it is..Beauty before me..all Life long… 🙂 Thank you.
Beauty is all around us and you captured it so well! Peace to all.
*deeply contented sigh*
Great sorbet, AKM, perfectly chilled there, also, too.
Dawn chorus of birds and frogs here by the pond this morning.
Now I’m ready for work and the day-before-prom
with all the drama that unfolds
when it’s springtime and the sap is rising
ha! practically summer with “lows” in the 60s and highs pushing 90
and the last month of school includes and AP exams,
and End of Course exams, not to be confused with Final Exams.
Bless our hearts, it’s a marathon,
but we’ll get through it
together.
Kindness and humor
and taking ~~and sharing~~ those moments of zen,
any of ’em, all of ’em we find in front of us.
Wishing you a fabulous Friday from the forest.
L’Shal~ommmmmmmmm
thatcrowwoman
AKM. you do know how to find the beautiful things in life. Thanks for starting my day off with such beauty – even the moose nuggets!
My rememrance of breakups past is the time I slipped in the mud and went crashing down in front of the Bethel Post Office. My husband said it was a 7 on the Richter Scale. (He who sat in the truck while 2 native ladies helped me up!)
Thanks.
I do this, too, for my walking meditation. I tend to see art in the tiniest things and spaces. Of course, my camera doesn’t get quite this close, but it’s amazing what can be found if you just look. Lovely work.