Theo's Nature Memories

I was wandering around on the web and came across the idea of making a nature journal with children. You can find what I read about nature journals on this website. I realized that I wanted to start a nature journal with my grandson, who is now 22 months. The last time I saw Theo, I took him outside. After playing with his trucks and in his sand box, I wanted to do something to connect to nature with him. He didn't want to go far from the house, so finally I had the idea to look up. It was a partly cloudy day, and the sky displayed a mosaic of small white puffy clouds. I pointed the clouds out to Theo. I pretended to try to grab them and catch them and bring them down to him. He thought it was terribly funny and leaned back and laughed, a big belly laugh. This of course egged me on. I pretended the clouds were cookies and tried to grab them again and again and give them to him. Each time I did it, he laughed that big joyous belly laugh. I lifted him up so he could try to reach the clouds, and he thought that was just as funny.


Now, ready to make a nature journal for Theo, I decided to start with our experience with the clouds. I hadn't taken pictures that day, so on another day with white puffy clouds, I took several pictures, and chose one for the cover of the journal. Theo came over last week and I showed him the journal. He didn't seem to remember our cloud experience, but he did seem to like the notebook, at least for a moment or two. 


I took Theo outside again. I had to carry him because he has broken his leg and has a cast all the way up to the middle of his thigh. He is heavy! I carried him along the pathway through my garden. When we came to the first tree, we stopped. I said, "Hello, Tree," and Theo said, "Hello, Tree." We spent some time looking at the tree and speaking to it. Then we continued along the pathway and back to the  lawn. Theo wanted to go around again before returning inside. This time when we reached the tree I said, "Good-bye, Tree." Theo said, "Bye-bye, Tree." The first page for Theo's Nature Journal will have this picture of the tree we visited and the words "Hello, Tree" above the picture and "Good-Bye Tree," under it.

I contemplate a tree. 

I can accept it as a picture: a rigid pillar in a flood of light, or splashes of green traversed by the gentleness of the blue silver ground. 

I can feel it as movement: the flowing veins around the sturdy, striving core, the sucking of the roots, the breathing of the leaves, the infinite commerce with earth and air--and the growing itself in its darkness. 

I can assign it to a species and observe it as an instance, with an eye to its construction and its way of life. 

I can overcome its uniqueness and form so rigorously that I recognize it only as an expression of the law--those laws according to which a constant opposition of forces is continually adjusted, or those laws according to which the elements mix and separate. 

I can dissolve it into a number, into a pure relation between numbers, and eternalize it. 

Throughout all of this the tree remains my object and has its place and its time span, its kind and condition. 

But it can also happen, if will and grace are joined, that as I contemplate the tree I am drawn into a relation, and the tree ceases to be an It.…What I encounter is neither the soul of a tree nor a dryad, but the tree itself.                     

                                                                                                 --Martin Buber, I and Thou

A Two-Man Saw

We had a two-man saw. More accurately, a two-person saw. We used it to cut fallen trees into short logs that we could then split into smaller pieces to be burned in the wood-burning stoves that helped to keep our home - an old farmhouse - warm (or at least warmish) in winter.

When I say "we" used it, I do me "we," which is why it should have been called a two-person saw, for I was neither man nor woman, but child, and yet many times I pulled on one end of this hefty tool. The saw had two vertical handles, large enough to be gripped by both hands, that were connected to a long metal blade with gigantic teeth. Getting the motion of the saw started was difficult. The big teeth would bump and jump and get stuck in the wood. My father directed me from the other end of the saw, telling me how to pull the handle toward me and not push it, and eventually, eventually, we would strike up a rhythm and the saw would sing as it glided back and forth, cutting through the fallen hardwood. Invariably, though, at some point deeper into the tree trunk, the rhythm would break. We would need to fiddle around, perhaps shifting in the angle of the saw, until we got a rhythm back - at least for a few strokes back and forth before stopping yet again. Invariably, too, my arms would grow tired, and someone bigger and stronger would step in to take my place. But I would always return, to again be one of the "men" at the ends of the saw. 

In every cut tree you can count
the rings to find out how old the tree was.

There was a great sense of satisfaction when the saw slipped through the last of the wood, or neared close enough to the end of its work that the length of log separated from the rest of the trunk and fell to the ground.

Later, the wood had to be chopped, and with this, too, I helped. I learned to wield an ax, and I often went out on a cold autumn or winter day to split some of the logs we had cut with that two-person saw. A giant log located beside the screen porch, under the big old maple tree, provided a chopping spot. The idea was to carefully position the log to be split upright on the larger log. It was richly satisfying to then raise the ax above my head, swing it down in the center of the chosen log, and with one whack split it cleanly into two. Wow! Of course, many times I was off the mark, and the ax went "thud" onto the wood and nothing happened, but I was successful often enough to keep me coming back and splitting more wood.

We had two fireplaces. One was totally enclosed, on four legs, with enough room for Smidgen - who, short-haired dog that she was, was always cold in the winter - to sprawl out beneath it for a nap. When she emerged, panting, she was too hot to safely touch. The second one was a Franklin stove, with glass doors on the front that could be opened or closed. Both gave off significant heat and helped the furnace - too small for the size of the house - heat the rooms.

A trail at Greenways
Conservation Area

The furnace in my home now is plenty big - and fossil fuels alone heat my home. I have a saw in my garage, but it is a one-person saw, and I use it mainly to cut up fallen pine branches before I haul them to the brush pile in the backyard or pile them in the trunk of my car to take them to the landfill.

In the woods near my home, someone else cuts the logs, not for burning in a  fireplace, but to clear the trails. The fallen trees are left to slowly decompose and return to the soil. Some have been lying there long enough to become covered by fungi, or to provide a solid base for a new tree to grow on.

At every moment you choose yourself. But do you choose your self? Body and soul contain a thousand possibilities out of which you can build many I's, but in only one of them is there a congruence of the elector and the elected. Only one--which you will never find until you have excluded all those superficial and fleeting possibilities of being and doing with which you toy, out of curiosity or wonder or greed, and which hinder you from casting anchor in the experience of the mystery of life, and the consciousness of the talent entrusted to you which is your I.               --Dag Hammarskjold


The heavens declare the glory of God, the sky proclaims His handiwork.
Day to day makes utterance, night to night speaks out,
There is no utterance, there are no words, whose sound goes unheard.
Their voice carries throughout the earth, their words to the end of the world.
Psalm 19:1-5

Hidden Gifts

Another hiding place

I've discovered a totally unexpected treasure as I have been writing these nature memories. Some of them contain hidden gems, jewels of understanding. These gifts are not discernible from the words - they are visible only to my heart and mind, but treasures and gifts indeed they are. Perhaps this is what unknowingly compelled me to begin writing. 


I look forward to the possibility that additional gifts of understanding will come my way as I continue to record my memories, and I invite you to hear and pay heed to the voice within you that leads you to your personal inner treasures.

Four O'Clocks

I had a flower garden. In late winter, my father would take me to the greenhouses at the university where he was a professor of botany, and we would plant seeds of the annual flowers that I would fill my garden. At the greenhouse there was wonderful, rich, clean potting soil, with which we filled flat, round pots. Very carefully, I spread out the seeds on the soil and then sprinkled on another thin layer of soil and watered the pots thoroughly. When we were finished, we set the pots out in the greenhouse, alongside seedlings and plants belonging to students or professors. 


Some weeks later I would go with my father again, and we would gently transplant the 2-inch high seedlings - marigolds, four o'clocks, zinnias, petunias, and more - into individual pots. In late spring my father would bring home the seedling,s and I would start to plant my garden. 

Four O'Clocks
by Nemo's Great Uncle

I especially remember the four o'clocks. I planted them beside the house, and by early summer the plants were two feet high and filled with bright blossoms - pink and white and yellow and red - blooms that opened in mid-day and closed again in the evening. It always bothered me that they were called four o'clocks - they didn't bloom right at four o'clock! They bloomed much longer, often starting earlier in the day and lasting well past four pm. My father had an explanation, which I had, of course forgotten. Now I learn that it is the change in temperature, not sunlight, that determines the flowers' bloom time. This fact of science didn't stick in my memory, but the images of the colorful masses of flowers below the front windows have remained with me.  


Because the four o'clocks close each evening, these were not the flowers for cutting and putting in vases; these remained outdoors, connected to stems and roots, only to be seen when coming or going, or just being outdoors.

Four O'Clocks
by Wallygrom

Why did I love those flowers so much? Their misbegotten name was surely part of it, their riot of colors, their insistence on being left where they were growing and not transported indoors to give brief enjoyment and then fade and die, the alluring pictures in the Burpee catalog, the moments alone with my father in the greenhouse, the flowers' spot beside the house, the height they grew to from those tiny seeds; the knowledge that they would without fail grow and thrive and bloom. 


A medley of bright, ephemeral colors, symbol of joy and cheer and hope.

Southern Spring

Soon
I will borrow
a bow saw
to trim the yews
that run my yard,
and soon
I will hunt stakes
to brace my plants,
but now
I must sit
in the shade
and watch
the four-o’clocks grow.

--James Donahoe

My garden now grows perennials only - in my busy life I need plants that will return each year on their own, without my help of seed planting. And when the first frost of autumn cuts short the last of the flowers' colorful display, their memory holds me through the shortening days until the new year brings tax forms and seed catalogs and visions of the richness of summertime.


I have learned that four o'clocks have tubers that can survive some winters. The bitter cold winters of my Wisconsin childhood were too much for them, but perhaps here in southern New England, the story will be different. I must try.

The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. (Song of Songs 2:12)

P.S. The poem above came from the website of Four-O'Clock Flowers Around the World Cancer Memorial. I sent an envelope to get four o'clock seeds from them, and you can, too. They ask you to plant the seeds as a symbol of hope. I will plant these seeds in memory of my cousin, Trynka, and my aunt, Lorraine, both of whom died of cancer.

Eggs

My brothers were raising animals, and I wanted to, too. I got chickens. We had a large chicken coop, which provided a home base for the birds. They were Bantams, colorful burgundy and brown. And some white chickens, too. I fed and watered them morning and evening in the chicken coop, closing them in at night and opening the door in the morning to let them out into the fresh air. 

Eggs laid by the hens
at Codman Farm in Lincoln, MA

At first the chickens laid their eggs in the chicken coop. I would gingerly slide my hand into the nest box and sometimes be rewarded by the feel of smooth eggs under my  hand. With time, the chickens began to wander far from the safe confines of the chicken coop. They could be found among any of the farm buildings, out on the rough gravel and bedrock that provided a roadway up the hill from the house to the barn, or among the tall grasses or the trees nearby. Sometimes, playing in the loft of the barn with my friends or my brothers, among the high stacks of baled hay we would suddenly come across a nest. It could have a dozen or more light brown eggs. Occasionally, one was still warm. We gathered up the eggs and took them home. The next day, they made their way into a cake or found themselves on my father's plate beside his daily strips of bacon. 


A Space Child's Mother Goose was infamous in my childhood home. We read it aloud together at times laughing so hard the tears welled up in our eyes. A few of Frederick Winsor's poems became etched in my memory, including one related (!) to eggs:

Probable-Possible, my black hen,

She lays eggs in the Relative When.

She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now

Because she's unable to Postulate How.

I, like Probable-Possible, remain unable to Postulate How, and I no longer gather eggs, but I still eat them. I buy eggs from a nearby community farm, and sometimes my friend Robyn gives me eggs from her hens. I am grateful for all of them.

The Holy One gives nourishment to all flesh, for Divine kindness endures forever. (Ps. 136.25) 

An Island in the Stream

Beyond the garden and below the spot where the cow pasture crossed the stream, where the stream banks were totally broken down by the cows and it was muddy all around, hidden among the willows growing out from the stream banks was a small unassuming island. This tiny plot of land was just barely an island. Most of the stream flowed along one side, but enough of a rivulet - more than a rivulet - flowed along on the other side that it could accurately be identified as an island. One hot summer, my friend and I lived a children's fantasy on that little piece of ground.


On our island grew small willow trees and a mass of undergrowth, brushy and hard to scramble through, and in the middle was a small open area. Working our way outward from this bit of open space, we brought into being a home. There we "played house." And yet, what we did together was much more than playing. We created - not out of nothing, but out of something - out of the earth and the grasses and the trees and the bushes and the spaces between the trees and the fallen logs, and out of our imagination - we created a sanctuary. We created a place of safety and security. A place where all is just as one imagines it. A place without pain or embarrassment or self-consciousness or judgement or rejection. A place where our souls could sing and our hearts could dance and we could be and do just as we wanted.

I would always choose to be the person running

rather than the mob chasing
I would prefer to be the person laughed at
rather than the teenagers laughing
I always admired the men and women who sat down
for their rights
And held in disdain the men and women who spat
on them
Everyone deserves Sanctuary a place to go where you are
safe
Art offers Sanctuary to everyone willing
to open their hearts as well as their eyes

                                 --Art Sanctuary, by Nikki Giovanni


Let them make for Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. (Ex. 25:8)

Hazel Brook

I walked today through Hazel Brook Reservation, a property of the Sudbury Valley Trustees. It was an unseasonably warm and sunny February day. I walked briskly, wanting and needing to exercise my body, to help it strengthen and heal. But when I reached the brook - something more than a rivulet - the sight and the sound of the water stopped me.  


Below the bridge the banks of the brook were broken and the trail was muddy from the hooves of horses traversing the it. Above the bridge, the water tumbled down a small hillside and over moss-covered rocks that provided a touch of green against the brown and grey of winter. 


I stood at first on the wooden footbridge, then sat down on it, listening, meditating, praying. The noise from traffic was muffled and distant. More present was the babbling of the brook.


Sanctuary. I sat in the midst of the art of the Creator, and I felt safe. My eyes and my heart began to open, and only then did I see the first skunk cabbages of the spring, just the tips, pushing upward through the dry leaves.

A Home Among the Grass

I had some very little people, wooden, I believe, intricately painted in bright colors. They were not much more than an inch tall - men, women, and children; families in my mind. 

One summer day, I created for these little people the most resplendent of homes, with rooms for everyone and every use. Sitting in the grass of the front yard, I carefully pulled out all the dead, dried grass from between the blades of green, growing grass, leaving behind areas of clear soil, free of growth: rooms! Narrow bands of grass-free soil made for hallways between larger rooms. Some openings were small - bedrooms, perhaps. Others were larger and could be a living room, or library, or perhaps a ballroom! My little people had never before had such luxuriant living conditions. Rich green wallpaper, deep brown carpets, and ceilings of sky blue turquoise. Ample sky lights in every room let the sunlight stream in, with quieter, dusky areas along the sides for those seeking a respite from the light and heat. 


My little people thrived in their new home, their spirits nourished by the sights and sounds and smells that wafted into their summer abode. Only, with the dark, their proprietress insisted on bringing them into the big house for safekeeping through the chill and the dark of the night. They didn't seem to mind in the least.

Wagon Wheel

In our yard was a wagon wheel, an old-fashioned one, made of wood and metal - a wooden inner wheel protected by a metal outer wheel. The wheel was attached to its axle, and the axle was sunk into the ground. But it wasn't straight up and down. The axle pointed up toward the sky at an angle, and so, of course, the wheel also sat an an angle, and the angle was such that one side of the wheel touched the ground and the other side was about 18 inches high. 


To me, this wheel was meant to be ridden. And so I tried. Sitting on the higher end, I lifted my legs, hoping to swing down and around (and perhaps up again?). It never worked very well. I cleaned away the weeds and grasses from around the wheel. I tried to reposition it so that it would be level and I could just go in circles, pushing myself with one foot. I tried twirling it around in hopes that it would become a better swing, or slide. All of my efforts were in vain. 

The old wagon wheel
Photo by Tom Allen

As a swing or a slide the old wagon wheel was an utter failure. And yet, I returned to it again and again over the years, trying in one way or another to get a usable ride. Summer after summer, the wheel was there for me to try again. We had a long and engaged relationship, for I returned even when I was long past the age of swings and slides and far to tall to even think of making the old, abandoned wheel into a ride. Now that wheel is embedded in my memory and in my soul, but not by itself or alone, for the wheel, sitting in our yard above the marshes, is joined forever with the wide-open sky, the trees lining the stream and rimming the western edge of the yard, the birds winging across the sky, and the summer breeze riffling through my hair.