Tag: Nature

The Powerful Epiphanies

The Power of Spring

As epiphanies often go, it was unexpected, and oh so satisfying. This spring season has been particularly fantastic – there are bumblebees, butterflies, dandelions, ducklings – all tripping over themselves to give you epiphanies of life, miracles, hope and so on.

One such day, we sat watching lazy waves rippling through a large pine tree. The previous day had been a cold, and windy day, we had scuttled inside for warmth. The next day was warm, pleasant and entirely suited to lounging around watching wind waving through pines, firs, and gingkos. 

The house was filled with noises of spring – young children exclaiming at blueberries, standing on tiptoes and peering up at the oranges on the tree, running through the house in a mad scramble looking for juice packets and snacks while playing freeze tag or mock-cricket. 

When the next stampede grew closer, I wondered whether to move aside from the herd of stampeding rhinos, or sit my ground and continue gazing at the roses in bud, and the pine in the wind. I continued to sit, and luckily, the fellows stopped, and one-by-one they all flapped around, and flopped on the grasses. 

“What are you thinking about?”

The Ginkgo’s Wisdom

I told them, and they sat pondering for a moment, sipping their juice. I couldn’t resist the pull of a quiet moment, and an uncharacteristically pliant audience. “Did you know about the ginkgo trees?” I asked my young fellow admirers of wind and trees.

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Thrilled that they didn’t all know, I launched on the ginkgo train – telling them about how they were around from the days of the dinosaur, and how they all communicated to each other, and decided when to shed their leaves. The son said that one of the trees will slow down if it is going too fast in the color changing race, waiting for its fellow ginkgos to catch up.

“Like friends are supposed to be!” piped up another. 

I beamed appreciatively. “Yes – exactly like friends – all helping each other get there. Together.”

Read also: The night of the Gingko : By Oliver Sacks in the New Yorker magazine.

The day’s epiphany done, the playgrounds beckoned, and I let them all run off their sugar highs before expecting them to quieten down for the night. I wonder how the birds manage to quiet their brood when they’ve had a little too much nectar. That epiphany can’t wait for another day.

“A real artist is the one who has learned to recognize and to render the ‘radiance’ of all things as an epiphany or showing forth of the truth.” ~ Joseph Campbell

The Problem of Perspective

It was one of those clear, cloudless days. The temperature was just right, when we stepped out of the house. A lazy dragonfly and a helicopter flying overhead got young minds and old talking about the similarities between them, and of course biomimicry-based inspiration between them.

Even as ubiquitous as air travel has become, that sense of aerial adventure still kindles something special and adventurous in us. I remember telling my friends the other while reading When Women Were Dragons book by Kelly Barnhill that I hoped to become a dragon – if not for anything, but for the soaring power of flight, and the perspective such an act affords us.

Seeing the world around us in different perspectives is an endless fascination is it not? It is why the artist painstakingly sketches that wart on the nose, or that dimpled chin, or that shadow of the leaf with so much love and attention. Perspective.

Perspectives in Art

So what is it about our day-to-day lives that we can apply the same principle to? We have been trained or naturally possess the ability to view a problem from another person’s perspective, in order to see their perspective. It all helps of course -it is what makes us human.

That morning as we watched the dragonfly flit and the helicopter fly lazily overhead – probably on a routine patrol, I felt the urge to see things from both their perspectives. What would they see? A young boy and a lady out on a walk, certainly, but what else? The helicopter certainly would not have seen the dragonfly, but could the dragonfly have seen or sensed the helicopter? I think so.

Watching the skies is endless fascinating especially if you live near fairly busy airport zones. A few hours later, I sat on the porch with a toddler, and peered up again – the child had spotted an aircraft and wanted to know whether it was a plane. “It is a 747!” piped a voice – older and wiser than the toddler, and he looked with awe at the plane overhead.

With my neck craned at the sky above, I felt a rush of gratitude for being able to relish these everyday joys with young minds. How often we don’t notice the planes, helicopters, and dragonflies overhead? How often we miss the perspective from above when solving the problems of our lives? If only, we could take our minds for a whirl of perspective, how marvelous that would be?

🌸🌸🌸 Oubaitori in Spring Time 🌸🌸🌸

Spring is here, and with it, the delightful uncertainties of the weather. 

Would it be a cold, bright, cloudless day, or a cold, cloudy day, or a warm sunny day? The possibilities are endless. Sometimes, I feel like a lamb in spring-time ready for a spot of prancing and rollicking in the hills, other times, like a caterpillar not yet ready to shed the cocoon.

Springtime is a fantastic excuse to wear a silly hat and chase after unicorns, wouldn’t you agree?

– Uncle Fred in the Spring Time – By P G Wodehouse

With the increasing length of our days, it is a beautiful feeling to step out into the sunset at the end of the day, The golden hour seems more radiant, and seems to even linger more, though that just may be due to the fact that the body has had the time to sip a cup of tea at the end of the day before sunset. 

One evening, I stopped to savor a fat plop of a raindrop on my face, and saw that the cherry trees had leaves on them. The flowers had all but gone. They were there two days ago. I peered at another tree not far away, still resplendent in its floral beauty, and another one that had a good smattering of brown leaves along with their pinkish blossoms. Once again, that longing to capture the blooming and blossoming in slow-motion came over me. How lovely it would be to sit and watch for the leaves to come in? 

Ah! What little things give us pause?! 

I read about a beautiful Japanese concept, Oubaitori

The ancient Japanese idiom, Oubaitori, comes from the kanji for the four trees that bloom in spring: cherry blossoms, plum, peach, and apricot. Each flower blooms in its own time, and the meaning behind the idiom is that we all grow and bloom at our own pace.

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A few days later, I went on another walk, this time peering up at a clear blue sky, and no jacket, only to notice the young gingko trees in the neighborhood beginning to sprout their light green leaves of beauty. I remembered the large gingko tree we’d long admired. That large tree, over a century old, fell in the winter storms this year, and I felt a pang. The patch on which it stood was overgrown with fresh grass, and a meadow full of yellow flowers. Nature’s lessons and epiphanies are rarely novel, but always welcome. 

Making a mental note to go for a short hike in the beautiful green hills nearby, I reluctantly headed home. 

Spring time is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s Party’!

– Uncle Fred in the Spring Time – By P G Wodehouse

Maybe it is time for a spot of springtime laughter with the maestro, P G Wodehouse himself.

🌈Irisophiles?🌈

February is really the month of Love. Not just because of Valentine’s Day, but the rainbows!

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February has been the month of rainbows – at least here in the Bay Area. Even if we know the Science behind rainbows, they are special. We’d glance outside, and see the sun peeking out after the rains, and I’d run to see if the magic is there. That in itself is surely magical.

While there are many words to describe the love of sunsets, clouds, starry skies, the sun, the moon, eclipses, forests, rain, thunder and lightning, there isn’t really a word to describe the love of rainbows. No one word to capture the soaring of the heart when it spots the multi colored ring of the Earth’s horizons. The squealing of the young and the old as they charge outside to catch the magical light of this beautiful universe. Imagining how marvelous it must look to hummingbirds and those who can see a larger spectrum of light.

Rainbow Tales

Of course rainbows have enamored humankind for centuries. 

🌈I can’t help thinking of the silly fable about the fox marrying the crow and throwing the garland up in the sky, and that is how a rainbow is formed, every time we spot one. 

👰Greek myths have a goddess, Iris, who is both a messenger of the gods and a personification of the rainbow. In Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, the demigods are able to use drachmas to communicate with the gods through a rainbow.

🍀The Irish, of course, have a quirky tale about finding gold at the end of the rainbow.

That is why I was this surprised at not being able to easily find a word for a lover of rainbows in a world filled with them.

Should we call ourselves Irisophiles?

🌇Opacarophile: lover of sunset

🎨Chromatophile – a lover of colors

⚡Ceraunophile – a lover of thunder and lightning

🌩️Nephophile – a lover of clouds

☀️Heliophile – a lover of the sun

🌜Selenophile – a lover of the moon

🤽Limnophile – a lover of lakes

🕯️Photophile – a lover of natural light

🌧️Pluviophile – a lover of rain

🌊Thalassophile -a lover of the sea and oceans

🌳Nemophile – a lover of forests

💛Xanthophile – a lover of the color yellow

Here are a list of words to engage any nature-o-philes:

Words for lover of Nature and Weather

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What do you think? Should the lover of rainbows be called an Irisophile. Or what other words would you suggest?

🌿Loud Walks in Quiet Places🌿

Walks : Loud & Quiet

There are quiet walks and there are loud walks in quiet places. 

Henry David Thoreau called it, “Taking the village with you.” or something to that effect. What he meant, I think, was that we took the problems occupying our minds and held onto them tightly, and a trifle obstinately, thereby making it harder for nature to soothe and calm. Really! The human mind is a strange thing. Sometimes, nothing sticks, and other times, nothing slides. 

“I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walking

These walks are trying at best. I found myself fiddling with poetry to try and distract the mind from the village, and the people in it. It was a feeble attempt, and one that requires far more concentration to be approved by Bard/Gemini maybe, but it’ll do. It would have to do.  

Poetry: Balm to the Soul

Was poetry not the balm to the soul?

The trees are trying

The waters are waving


The swans are soothing

The squirrels are scampering


The deer are divine

The eagles are evocative


The vultures are volatile

The pelicans are pure


Yet the spirit

Remains dispirited


Some days are trying

For your mind is wavering

Just as I had managed to get nature to work its magic, I was summoned back to reality by three loud gentlemen discussing the virtues of housing all their data in the cloud, and how that reduced their costs. I found myself calculating storage costs and estimating budgets. 

I looked resolutely at the clouds overhead and said loudly, “Nope – look at the real clouds!”. I may have startled a little wren foraging for food in the bushes nearby, and it took flight in an alarming manner after throwing me a reproachful glance. 

Oh well! 

Nature did do its work!

But, I found, on getting into the car, nature had done its work. It may have had to try harder and send a few more butterflies my way, but it did. I was much refreshed in mind and spirit, clearer in what I needed done.

I chuckled remembering Thoreau’s quote on Walking, and spending at least 4 hours a day in nature – a luxury most of us can seldom afford, but we can afford smaller bursts of it:

“I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.”

A disruption of ducks

There is a curious rhythm to the days after our India trip. The usual things still occupy our time – school, work, projects, commutes, the changing landscapes of nature, and all the rest of it. Maybe it is the throes of a winter season, or the fact that after the intense ceremonies of the beginning of the month, the quiet is disconcerting, but we felt on edge.

Like the hedgehog, we found ourselves peeking out of our hidey holes to see if life is normal, and finding that it is, were somewhat taken aback. Do you mean to say that we must plan to prune the roses? 

Oh well, all right. If you insist, I suppose.

One morning, the son and I finding ourselves at a loose end decided to take a bike ride to dissipate some of this energy. img_9439

“Amma! Look – I just saw a hedgehog peep out.”

“Oh nice! It is close to February, so it must be checking.”

“I didn’t see if it saw its shadow though – we were going too fast!” said the son.

It was a lovely day – the feel of wind against our cheeks, the gentle cumulus clouds overhead, and the bay hosting a large variety of birds. We stood there taking in the beautiful sights when hundreds of birds took flight all at once, and then, as though nothing had happened, flocked back to their original place a few moments later. The son and I had a number of ideas as to what caused the disturbance, each more juvenile and silly than the next, but left us cackling all the same. 

No one could deny the beautiful shared experience of the disruption – the birds heaving in one smooth cacophony and the humans ashore fumbling quickly to capture the sudden movements and failing miserably. 

It reminded me of the book I was reading the previous day, On Duck Pond – By Jane Yolen Pictures by Bob Marstall.

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As I walked by the old Duck Pond

Its stillness as the morning dawned

Was shattered by a raucous call:

A quack of ducks both large and small …
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An understanding quickly dawned:

We’d shared a shock, and now a bond

And I was feeling very fond,

Of everyone on old Duck Pond.

As always the day out in nature surrounded by the fabulous clouds, the sun’s rays, the beautiful lights of the ocean, the stories the son and I swapped on our ride, the birds, first signs of spring in the wildflowers by the bay, had weaved its magic, and we returned home refreshed in mind and spirits.

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P.S: A group of ducks, as Jane Yolen mentions in her book, are known by a number of names:

A raft of ducks

A paddling of ducks

A badelynge of ducks

Also, bunch, grace, gang or team.

The Sounds of Silence

After two weeks in India, the first walk I took by the lakeside was far more comforting than I thought. Nature has always been my solace. It has always been the thing I’ve been teased most about by the children.

But it is the one place, I can just be.

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I stood there for several minutes savoring the silence, listening to the swishing of wings as a bird took flight, or the winds rustled through the tree tops above.

The son put it best when we came back. “Shh!”

He said. “Can you hear that?”

“What?” The husband and I said cocking our heads to listen.

“Exactly! “ he said looking triumphant.

It was bliss.

“No other sound can match the healing power of the sounds of nature.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Song of a Nature Lover

Sun Rise Sun Rise!

We stood there waiting for the sunrise over the Grand Canyon. 

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We had driven up there the previous evening in what felt like 20 degree weather. The moon lit scapes around us were beautiful from inside the car, but outside, it looked unforgiving. It was cold, and the desert around us was different enough. Even so, the same landscapes at night take on a different feel and dimension altogether. The shelves of stone around us in the early morning light of dawn was breathtaking. As if a different hue was revealed with every tilt in angle of the sun’s rays. 

How drawn to light we are as a species? Somewhere, the sharp smells of pine wafted through, and I wondered briefly whether we stopped to let our other senses weigh in as much when we have sight and light. 

I suppose we do let sounds and smells in, and do allow our sense of touch  to help us along. But do we really develop our other senses? A preliminary search says we gather about 80% of our sensory perceptions using sight. 

Dogs, on the other hand, seem to distribute their perceptions between sight, smell and sound. 

The early morning calm of the sun-rise and my meandering thoughts were interrupted by the loud calls of a mother looking for her children. I turned around irritated, and was somewhat surprised that I was surrounded by this many people on a cold Christmas Day morning, standing on a cliff overlooking the Grand Canyon and waiting for the sun to rise. 

But I suppose, it was my fault for not expecting this. It promised to be a beautiful day, after all, and like me, many had decided to brave the cold, and take in the marvelous sunrise over the horizon at a point helpfully named Sunrise Point. 

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I let out an amused grin, and exchanged a look with the children – they seem to have caught on to my look of surprise at finding other people there. It was a beautiful moment: the mother pulled her child towards her, and the sun burst forth in glory over the horizon. 

All was well with the world at this moment. 

Let’s go for some breakfast and then take a long, quiet walk along time, I said shuffling away from Sunrise Point, and the children chuckled at the thought. We are not an early rising family, and we scurried inside towards warmth, food and coffee before attempting to take on people and canyons. 

🕊️🍁 🦅 Hawkish Power? 🐦‍⬛🍁 🦅

As soon as I came home, the words rattled in me 

To capture the moments when joyous and noisy, turned to eerie and silent.

The terrifying sound of all the birds leaving at the same time

The fluttering of a thousand wings – away, away to safety.

The ecstatic beauty of standing under a tree 

With thousands of leaves fluttering gently down.

The ears pricking up with the joy of 

Listening to hundreds of little birds chittering above.

All gone with the arrival of one regal hawk

The birds all flew, while the hawk gawked.

Without the rustling of the birds

Even the leaves stopped falling.

Of what use was this power?

When there was no one to exert it on?

It was a show of power so instant, so terrifying and so alien to the beautiful wintry surroundings, that I shuddered in spite of myself.

My thoughts swirled with dictators and their absolute clawing for this kind of power. Do people in power not want a happy, joyous populace? I thought of the happy chittering and camaraderie of the birds from moments ago and stood under the tree not making any noise,  content to enjoy the sounds of life overhead. 

As I walked back home from this eerie setting, my mind wandered to all the fittings of power and its lure over mankind. It doesn’t look like it will abate. Countries continue to go to war, and though countries may win or lose, the people involved always only seem to lose – their trust, their security, their loved ones, their hopes, their peace.

 

 

The Light of Being

The evenings have been drawing in earlier and earlier. As if the natural tilt of the axis weren’t enough, there was a time change thrown in. The result is that my evening walk is in the company of the glittering stars, and I am grateful for these little reminders of light – as far away as they may be. 

One evening I found myself thinking of this and that on my evening walk. The stars twinkled above, the leaves crunched below. Though I could not make out the colors just then, I could imagine them well enough in my mind’s eyes – bright reds, yellows, deep maroons. 

Californian Novembers are magical indeed. 

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Where our northern or eastern counterparts would already be bracing for the winters, our autumn cloaks are just getting started. Our gingkos have only just donned their beautiful cloaks of buttery mellow yellow, the maples and oaks, their swirling cloaks of ruby reds, and thick velvety ones of deep maroon. I wondered when the cold would start and looked up at the stars instinctively. 

Albus Dumbledore seemed to wink at me through the stars: 

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

– Dumbledore in the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 

I swished on for a bit pondering.

Deep in the epipelagic layers of the ocean, there are creatures who have taken this to heart. In the twilight zone, the only light they have is their own. How must that feel to them? The deepest darkest nooks and crannies of an unforgiving ocean made accessible only through their own bioluminescence. 

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In one fell arc bypassing lands and atmospheres, the stars and the bioluminescent life in the oceans seem to share a Light of Being. 

What are our sources for finding the light in ourselves – the means of switching on the inner lights? Good friends, warm meals, bracing walks in nature, the finest ideas in literature, art and music. Hygge. A halo that reflects the warmth and light within, in the harshest of winters, and the coolest of springs? If only we could all cast our own little patronus.

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Books: