Nature’s Piggy Banks

I don't remember ever having a piggy bank as a child. I did have a small porcelain bowl in the corner of a kitchen drawer. Once a week I received a nickel to put in that bowl. Time passed, and all those nickels were jammed in a red leather, heart-shaped, change purse. It closed with a zipper. In the summer just before I turned five, I was clutching that beloved red heart change purse in my hand as we clamored over huge glaciated boulders on one of the 1000 Islands in the Saint Lawrence River between Ontario, Canada and upstate New York. In an instant I lost my grip on that purse as it slid through the deep and narrow space between two boulders. Maybe I've always loved the combination of oversized rock and powerful water because once I unexpectedly deposited my treasure there.

Many fall seed pods remind me of that overstuffed red heart change purse of long ago, my version of a piggy bank. Split-open pods reveal an abundance of seeds, seemingly numberless like my nickels. Seed pods release a promise of growth over the horizon. They empty themselves in an utter act of generosity, spewing out every seed in their packed treasure trove. There's no concern for a prudent, guaranteed investment; seeds are not saved for another day. Instead they are given over to the wind for a wild ride. Milkweed seeds like these of the orange milkweed require winter's cold to stratify before the chance they might take root and rise up to nourish next year's monarch caterpillars. The abundant and generous give-away of one autumn will be repeated the next year. How do they trust that what they grow to offer will be renewed? Can you and I trust a similar movement in our lives?

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Of Leaf Prints, Wrinkles, and Memory

During my childhood in upstate New York, it wasn't uncommon to have a light snow before Halloween. Whether there had been snow in October or not, November was reliably cold and wet. Rain-splattered sidewalks were slippery with leaves adhered to them. Walking back and forth to school, I stopped to enjoy those places where the sidewalk preserved the delicate, brown outline of a November leaf that had once been pressed to its surface.

I was admiring the beautiful work of a quilter the other day. Her piece I commenting on covered the large altar of her church. My eye especially noticed the background material she had chosen. She laughed and said she found it on a remnant table, and like all good polyester it didn't have a memory. That was her artful way of saying it didn't wrinkle like cotton, telling the stories of where it had been and requiring ironing.

Her poetic remark about polyester's absence of memory intrigued me especially since we were talking on November 2, historically celebrated in many Christian churches as All Souls' Day, a day to remember and be mindful of the dead. A lack of memory or wrinkles is convenient in fabric. It allows us to stay firmly anchored in the present, not lurking in times past. Remembering those we have loved and lost to death can wrinkle our hearts with pain. It can also release unbridled gratitude for all that person or persons gave that continues to shape us. My friend Benson died twenty five years ago yesterday, one of thousands of young gay men whose lives ended prematurely in the AIDS epidemic. His humor, generous spirit, impeccable eye, and artistry are still imprinted, a fine brown outline, on the sidewalk of my soul. Who do you remember in these November days?

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A Word from the Ancestors

Dia De Los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, has just taken place in Mexico. This annual celebration of ancestors' lives is neither scary nor sad. Gravesites are cleaned and decorated. Festivities include picnics and community-wide social events. As the dead are honored, a tradition is passed on that is intended to thrive well beyond those currently remembering. At the same time, Monarch butterflies are beginning to return to Mexico following their long annual fall migration of several thousand miles. During November and December they arrive to cluster in oyamel fir forests for overwintering. Mexican celebrants perceive in those Monarchs the visitation of their ancestors whose lives they are recognizing. The last Monarch, a male, left our waystation in Northern Illinois on October 8. If he survives the journey, I wonder about his time of arrival in Mexico.

Taking a cue from our Mexican neighbors, when we listen with the migrating Monarchs, what might their ancestral presence and wisdom teach us? As much as scientists know about the monarch migration, much is still a mystery. Monarchs remind us that our life journey, whatever its length, has plenty of mystery. We can never quite pin down instinct or intuition. They invite us to partner with the elements around us. They rely heavily on sun and wind. In their unfamiliar beginnings as newly winged creatures, they have the courage to take flight and soar. So must we in changing seasons, with changing capabilities, while facing changing situations. Monarchs value community which is essential for warmth when they rest together along their migration and congregate in large groups for overwintering. One of my favorite lessons with the migrating Monarchs is their disregard for artificial boundaries. They embrace the North American continent from Canada to New Mexico. They are uniters across generations and boundaries.

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In the Light

All my life has been a relearning to pray-a letting go of incantational magic, petition, and the vain repitition “me, Lord, me” instead watching attentively for the light that burns at the center of every star, every cell, every living creature, every human heart. (Chet Raymo)

There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. (Thomas Merton)

In the late 1980's when my children were young, I traveled on the train overnight to a conference on children and spirituality. It occurred over the first several days of November. On the evening of November 1, All Saints' Day, we were gathered in the chapel of the seminary where we were meeting. This space was built in the 1920's and featured quantities of dark oak and stained glass. Everyone received a simple wreath for their heads made of gold garland. In the candle lit chapel our head wreaths were glowing. That is the single specific recollection I have of that meeting, a room with light blazing from our heads. It mattered that we were together. The light grew because there were many of us.

What would it be like if you and I were aware of the potential light we have to radiate wherever we are? How might the world be different if we recognized similar light in one another and in all that surrounds us? Light is life and energy. It fills us with hope, protects us, and allows us to see. Our light is a gift for us to give; similarly it is an offering sent in our direction. We can become light, name light, and send forth light. We face so much that is dark, dreary, and dangerous. Bearing light together is a powerful witness to what might sustain us all.

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What Does Autumn Look Like?

Today, November 1, in the Northern Hemisphere we are exactly half way between the fall equinox and the winter solstice. We are at the midway point of autumn and at the beginning of the year's darker six months. Over last weekend I visited with friends in the mountains of western North Carolina. These are the southern Appalachian mountains, the same range I knew well up north as a child in upstate New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont. I delighted then and now in the familiar mix of autumn's leafy palette — red, orange, yellow, bronze, and brown splashed across the hillsides. When I was in my early twenties and still living in the northeast, a friend once compared those autumn hillsides to a bowl of Trix cereal.

Last night traveling home toward northern Illinois, I spent a night in Nashville, Tennessee where you can behold the last remnants of summer's roses, an array of reds and pinks. I first saw roses in November when I moved to Saint Louis in my mid twenties. To this day they remain an out-of season surprise to my eyes, a sharp contrast to the fire colors I associate with autumn.

These days of transition with their fast falling leaves, seeding of seasons to come, approaching cold, and gathering darkness offer more than one colorway. Around me on broad prairie lands, there are subtle variations of brown and fading golds as fields are harvested and prepared for winter. Four or five hours to the south roses hang on to summer's hues. Forested areas, particularly at an altitude, show off bold, brilliant, warm colors. There is so much to see and store up in our memory files to remind us of growth over the horizon of winter's whites and grays. What colors await outside your windows today?

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Coneflowers are a prominent symbol of native prairie plants. They are colorful and last throughout the growing season. Their abundant blooms spread easily from one year to the next. The distinct droop of their petals is easy to recognize. Coneflowers abound in sites of prairie restoration.

The coneflowers in the Monarch Waystation behind my house have been well beyond their prime for weeks. Only their signature seed cones remain atop most of the stems. But there are a few places with new blooms, maturing blooms, and seed cones all mixed up with one another. Coming upon those remnant patches, I find myself in full view of the proverb: “All the flowers of the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.”

Autumn is a difficult time of year for many people in northern climates. Days grow shorter and shorter between increasingly chilly nights. Dried up summer flowers and crops yet to be harvested rattle in the wind. The coloring of the land turns to a darker palette of browns and grays. The birdsong of warmer months has largely stilled as the fullness of summer has shed on every side. Inside that dominant story of decline and diminshment lies a paradoxical tale of anticipated growth. On the fur of passing animals and the breath of the wind, seeds are carried, scattered, and distributed here and there. Those seeds will be on pause through long weeks of stillness and cold. They can't be rushed. But with the returning promise of increasing light and warmth, those seeds will be in position for a remarkable new greening. In many dark times , it can be very hard to keep the seeds in mind. It is then that this coneflower photo reminds me of the ongoing cycle from new bloom to seed cone and back again.

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It’s In the Box

You may remember from previous posts the last couple of years that we have been developing a Monarch Waystation behind my house. This is part of an effort across the Midwestern US to restore a milkweed-rich habitat for Monarch butterflies as they migrate round trip each year between Mexico and the northern US and Canada and back again. The largest Monarch migration covers this middle of the continent route. Monarchs and other butterflies are among the pollinators who help supply one third of our daily nutrition. Butterflies are not the most efficient of the pollinators, but the beautiful Monarchs with their mysterious annual migration are the poster species for all the pollinators who are struggling so to maintain thriving populations. Common insect pollinators include butterflies, bees, flies, and beetles.

The vast bulk of insect pollinators are solitary and don't live in communal settings like a hive. Numerous bees, wasps, and flies seek out tunnels and holes to lay eggs, raise their young, and hibernate through the winter. Pollinators boxes filled with holes of different sizes for an array of pollinators are one of the strategies we are using now to support pollinator populations.

A pollinator box has just been made for our Waystation. It is framed out with repurposed barn wood from the area, has a recycled tin roof, and is jammed with holes and tunnels. We have this box inside briefly now for rituals of pollinating prayers. In the picture above showing a portion of our pollinator box, the colored papers are rolled up prayers for the pollinators and other pollinating activity that enhances life across communities and species, and nourishes and protects our ecosystem as a whole. We choose life by following the ordinary example of pollinators around us. For together we and the pollinators share our wellbeing.

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Harbinger Leaves

There's always a lead off player in the batting order. When we are lined up alphabetically, one whose last name begins with “a” or “b” ends up at the head of the line. In an academic procession, the faculty traditionally walks in reverse order with newer professors entering before those with more seniority. Political figures, journalists, scholars, and community organizers have a habit of being out front of the general public on community-changing and life-altering issues. It can be uncomfortable or lonely, but someone needs to set certain courses of action. Red winged blackbirds arrive back in northern Illinois about mid-March when the cold may still be quite thick. They return long before other migrating birds.

Ever since I was a child, I have thrilled at the sight of the first red branch of leaves when August is just half over. Meanwhile, other trees are in full summer dress. Wide fields of tall corn are proudly green and haven't begun to shift to brown shades of dryness. Carpets of soybeans aren't ready to try on their lovely yellows and golds of harvest. Those red leaves promise my favorite season of the year still beyond the horizon. They are the harbingers of things to come.

A branch of red leaves in August is out ahead of its colleagues. That branch is making a statement about what isn't fully visible yet. It remind us of moments when courage is required for any of us to step out before others around us. The branch carries a caution as well to treasure carefully what will soon pass from our midst. Its red leaves show up in the excitement and discomfort of transition underway. Before long, other leaves will catch up with those August harbingers. What will we ponder among the messages of harbinger leaves?

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Remembered Grapes

Those who study our senses remind us that smell is the sense that is most provoking for our memory. The middle of last month I was in the mountains of western North Carolina. As I hiked around the area inbetween the sessions of the event I was attending, I came upon a small segment of Southern Appalachian Bog. It was carefully protected with large educational signs full of information on exotic invasive plants. A boardwalk wound its way through the bog. On the bog's far side, just beyond the swirling brushes where you can clean the bottoms of you shoes to discourage the spread of unwanted seeds, my nostrils filled with the sweet smell of wild grapes. The birds had pretty much picked clean the grape vines, but their fragrance clung to the warm southern air.

With one deep inhale of that grape-tinged air, I time traveled back to elementary school in the late 1950's and early 1960's in upstate New York. Herman Avenue School sat on a large piece of land in a residential neighborhood. There were playing fields and space to run all around the school. At the edge of the school property on the east side, there was a home whose back yard was filled with Concord grape vines. Concord grapes are native to the northeastern United States. As elementary school students of a certain age, we would wiggle on the ground underneath the vines to grab a grape snack during morning recess. I imagine the homeowners had some sense of what was going on, but we were never caught or reprimanded. It was a delicious recollection for me, in the North Carolina mountains more than fifty years later. And still sun, rain, and the right soil deliver this tasty treat. Or as Galileo Galilei once wrote: The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.

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Robin Memories

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: It would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. (C.S. Lewis)

I met this young robin four weeks ago early in the morning. It was not yet a strong, mature flyer, but it's egg days were behind it. Among many robin's egg facts, a few cling to me. Once this summer I glimpsed a mother robin hopping up on the edge of her nest to gently turn the eggs it held. This turning is essential to keep the eggs evenly warm and to prevent the developing babies from sticking to their shells. Egg tending requires more than just sitting. When the sitting is over, that same mother robin leaves space and time for the young one inside to peck its way out unaided. This hatching can take an entire day. Getting from one's hatching out to a position beyond the nest like the young robin I encountered has its many steps too. Recalling a young robin on the pavement, I envision that bird high against the sky now.

In the egg, C.S. Lewis saw a reflection of all of us, our ideas, dreams, plans, potential. It is easy to give up on a hope we have nurtured. Rarely does anything happen as quickly, smoothly, or easily as we would like. En route, we are tempted to remain safely in process forever, never having to test out if what we want or are working on can actually take flight. When I look up at the empty nest on the front of my house this fall and through the winter, I'm going to keep track of what it is I would like to unleash in my life and then be mindful of the many steps to be taken before the vulnerable moment when it comes to be or not. The nest is a humble nudge toward risk, growth, and perhaps even future flight.

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