At no time in the year is the concept of “fleeting” more realized than now. Thoughts are drawn to the nature of time, the passing of yet another cycle around the sun, when we approach New Year’s Eve.
Nature, as well, basically screams about transience. One day you see the mushrooms firmly planted on logs and soils, the next day they’ve disappeared. When you walk the same route, as I do, several times a week, it is almost spooky how the fungi jump into your field of vision or vanish, almost while you look.
The Thesaurus definition of the verb to mushroom – as in sprout or grow quickly – confirms that aspect of mycological nature:
Their transient nature extends to my ability to remember the classifications, despite the fact that the five Phyla in the kingdom of fungi have such wonderfully strange names.
There are Chytrids, who live in water. There are the Zygomycota, also called the conjugated fungi, known to us more familiarly as bread mold. I can just see my self sighing at the breakfast table: “oh no, conjugated fungus again…”
“Sac fungi, where did I put you?” wonders the baker, looking for the package of yeast, or the cook looking for morels and truffles. These belong to the Phylum of Ascomycota, and can have horrid consequences for people with compromised immune systems, inducing fungal pneumonia, for example, as well as being harmful to multiple crops.
What you buy in the store, or collect in the woods to cook with your pasta are Basidiomycota, the club fungi, which often have gills under their caps. However the shelved creatures you see on trees also belong to this Phylum.
The imperfect fungi flourish in imperfect households, or suitably moist and dirty conditions in nature: the common mold are part of the Phylum Deuteromycota. Their reproduction is strictly asexual. Which is weird, given how fast they spread – all without fun?
And here we demonstrate the fleeting nature of intentions: all I wanted to do today was show off the beauty seen in the woods this week and the persistent cleverness of Dickinson’s observations. Had to yield to the desire to learn more, once more. Well, at least I can now be brilliantly exclamatory when I open the bread drawer – should I be able to remember conjugated fungus for more than two minutes…..
We’ll hear today from a composer who fell for fungi, John Cage. (The link is to an article that lays out Cage’s passion.) Here is one of his Piano pieces in a strange arrangement for Thai gongs and electric bass – why not, we’re dealing with strange nature, after all.
A Bird, came down the Walk – He did not know I saw – He bit an Angle Worm in halves And ate the fellow, raw,
And then, he drank a Dew From a convenient Grass – And then hopped sidewise to the Wall To let a Beetle pass –
He glanced with rapid eyes, That hurried all abroad – They looked like frightened Beads, I thought, He stirred his Velvet Head. –
Like one in danger, Cautious, I offered him a Crumb, And he unrolled his feathers, And rowed him softer Home –
Than Oars divide the Ocean, Too silver for a seam, Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon, Leap, plashless as they swim.
***
I’ve been hanging out in the garden far too much, not able to brave the heat for more adventurous excursions. But I shouldn’t complain, given the number of visitors happily parading in front of the camera, as long as the plants provide sustenance or I bring out the bird seeds….
Quite a few youngsters,
and one of the butterflies makes my heart beat faster, since he comes every day, a relentless survivor given that someone ate half of his wings.
Squirrels now letting me come so close I could practically give them a manicure, or is that a pedicure?
Bees, in contrast to last year, are leaving me alone, too busy in the lavender.
An occasional newt
Summer. An oasis. Not even a slug to fight with. I feel blessed.
Then again there is always a mouse that needs transport far away from my basement….lest it comes back the next day.
Music matches the mood – maybe Mother Goose comes down the walk next. In the meantime, the chickadees get fed.
Instead of a nature walk you get to accompany me on a neighborhood walk this week. I figured I’d do a bit of my daily “practicing hope,” after this sign early on reminded me that we are all kind of limping along. All photographs taken with iPhone within a 2 mile radius in NE PDX.
So what could I interpret in ways providing us all with a bit of optimism?
—> Not everyone sits on a high horse – there are some down to earth ones to be found, always.
—> My favorite birds decorated cottage gardens, and pottery at pop-up sales, arranged on brightly colored shelves. I found the website of the artist, Natalie Warren, here. And am now thew proud owner of a tiny cup painted with a crow’s head. Art + birds, wherever you look!
I know, consumerism. But then again, we need to support local artists!
—> Unclear whose art this was, some shades of Max Ernst, some Phoenix more Escher than ashes, some arrangement of pies that had me lust, fully aware that I have enough to eat and even afford the luxuries of sweets…
—> Happy to note that Yellow Peril support Black Power and that someone, anyone, still remembers Leonard Peltier.
Not everyone, then, withdraws into idyls complete with Gartenzwerg….
In fact, some neighbors very explicitly reminded us that we have obligations to remember:
All of us:
—> In any event, the keys to hope were visible: in explicit and implicit forms – you’ll forgive me if I post an overused poem, but could not escape the symbolism in front of my eyes.
And because I did not make your brains work today, I will go harder on your ears – here is what I am currently listening to, constantly, some fascinating experimental music from a Chicago/NY based group je’raf. Their political satire is another reason for hope – there are still people out there fighting! AND having fun while doing it.
I have been cold in April before. Seriously cold. Shipped off to England from Germany during Easter break to learn English as a 10-year-old, the host family’s daughter dragged me to old churches and had me do some brass rubbing while she absconded with a secret boyfriend. On my knees on someone’s commemorative brass plaques on the floor, large swaths of butcher paper rolled over it and rubbing oil crayon on it, like you would do with a pencil over a coin. Hours on end in unheated Cambridge cathedrals. Miserable, as well as cold.
A decade later the state was self-inflicted. I had agreed to “meet” my boyfriend who was traveling in North Africa at the Spanish port of Algeciras to drive back home together. I had taken a ferry, crowded with drunk tourists, from the island of Ibiza where my mother spent Easter with me, to Barcelona. From there a long train trip to the Southern tip of Spain. All this in the age before cell phones and credit cards, the early 70s, mind you. Found the cheapest hostel possible in Algeciras with no heat, a threadbare blanket matched by a threadbare towel for the sink with cold water in the room, WC down the hall, no showers. And then the wait began. Each day a walk to the post office to see if there was a letter kept at “poste restante.” Each day a walk to the harbor where the ferry from Africa (Ceuta, really a Spanish enclave) arrived. Standing in harsh winds from the Strait of Gibraltar waiting for the cars to unload in long lines. No message, no boyfriend. Plenty of catcalling. Cold nights with only one incomprehensible book to distract me, Leon Trotsky’s letters – don’t ask – until funds ran out, must have been a week or so. I hitchhiked home, having not enough money left over for a train ticket, with some friendly Brits. Happy ending delayed by about 2 weeks, when the parts for the broken-down land rover finally arrived in some atlas mountain hamlet and the return trip resumed. I think I was still freezing when we reunited in Germany all those weeks later…
And now snow. Mid-April. In Portland, Oregon. Obscuring the plum- and pear-tree blossoms, eliciting shivers and uncanny thoughts about another harvest damaged by extreme weather. Dickinson came to mind and her ways to observe the landscape, distilling views, providing new associations. Never mentioning the word snow once while writing an entire poem about it….
Photographs today from my garden within a 5 day span, from warmth in the 70s to today’s snowfall of 2.5 inches. I first thought I might add the newest political news on the climate denial/regulation/Supreme Court decisions front. Then I decided against it. Why mix the brightness of the snow with the underlying dark issues. Let these beautiful words ring in our ears, and the images speak for themselves.
Today’s post is dedicated to my grandfather Eduard (1894 – 1977) a musician, bird lover and gentle soul. His birthday was yesterday.
Canada Geese
Buckle up folks, it’s going to be all over the map today.
It all started with a reminder notice that one of the strangest pieces of music, John Cage’s ORGAN2/ASLSP –As SLow aSPossible – was about to change to a different tone on February 5, 2022. The longest composition ever – duration 639 years, you read that right – started in 2001, with a seventeen month-long pause before the first tone of the organ, especially built for the performance of this piece, was to be heard. Here is a video clip that shows the special organ in a small church in Halberstadt, Germany.
One particular tone emanates continually, and is changed at irregular time intervals according to the composer’s instructions. (Here is a calendar that shows the me changes and tone variations.) The current sound will last 2 years. This announcement had me wonder:
While we had to wait for more than 6 long years for the 14. sound change in 2020 , the next one is occurring only a few months hence, on February 5th. Quite a challenge for a subjective sense of time to get the hang of this. For those clinging to their subjective sense of time we might mention that the new sound will last exactly 24 months. Could very well be that those months will pass in a flash.
Honestly, I could not tell if this was meant seriously or ironically – probably a combination of my addled brain and being German. But be that as it may, it reminded me of a dominant topic in my current conversations. How is our sense of time shaped by the pandemic, the isolation, the sameness of the days and, admittedly, by aging?
Snowgeese yesterday
Snowgeese from other years
Cage’s composition was not the only reminder of the languid, unending spread of hours and days that I – many of us – feel, like time stalling. (This stands, of course, in extreme contrast to young families for whom the double burden of professional work and unrelieved childcare at home leads to a sense of having not enough time ever, time on 3x speed fast forward.)
One of the best cinematic experiences I’ve had in these last months also managed to capture a sense of time that is altered, aided by the elongated storytelling formats of TV series—those time-indulgent, episodic ways to weave a tale, unhurried by a two-hour time limit of movies. And no one knows how to unfold a plot in slow-mo better than the modern Korean film makers.
Steller’s Jay yesterday – Grey herons from other years
In Beyond Evil (directed by Shim Na-yeon, available on Netflix) it’s not just about the tempo of the narrative, though. Time itself seems to stand still in a small town haunted by age-old murders and secrets, with an unlikely coupling of 2 unmatched policemen churning the dregs and bringing new sorrow. It is not a serial murder case in the traditional sense, but rather a psychological study of a variety of characters stuck in time as flies are on those strips hanging in country kitchens. The protagonists are honing their compulsions, tending to their losses, and deciding what to sacrifice to remain on the ethical side of things. I know, does not sound enticing, but honestly, it was brilliant.
Sandhill Cranes yesterday
Sandhill cranes from other years
So, I thought, perhaps we should delve into the scientific psychology of time perception, since a lot of research has happened in the field lately. Nah, you can read up on it here. I much rather learn from poets than deal with my own field today.
Hawk from yesterdayHarrier HawkRedtail Hawks from other years
Both of the poems below managed to drag me away from moping about the altered sense of time’s passing, the feeling of being hermetically closed off from a perception of forward movement. They helped me, pushed me towards remembering what I sort of know but always forget: what matters is attention to the moment, the noticing and processing of what is afforded to you by grace of nature or the kindness of others or the tasks that give you pleasure or a sense of having something gotten done or the simple acknowledgment you’re still functioning reasonably.
Bald Eagle from yesterday
Baldies from other years
With Forever- is composed of Nows – Emily Dickinson celebrates recurrence, sameness, un-differentiation, all the while she spent her life in something akin to self-imposed lockdown.
Hummingbird (in February!) from yesterdayKingfisher from other years
Seems like good advice. I figured I’d drag a series of “nows” out of the archives, selecting samples of the last 5 years of early February photographs all taken without travel, in my immediate vicinity (2021 excluded since it was spent in hospital…) The same ducks and geese, sandhill cranes and variety of raptors, the same small folk and an occasional outlier (elk!) thrown in – a forever of joy from repeat excursions, the last one just yesterday afternoon. It helps to live in Oregon, one of the most beautiful places imaginable.
Elk from other years
You can slow down time as much as you want, if you ask me, if it still contains the possibility of momentary encounters, anchoring us in the NOW. Even robins, bushtits, woodpeckers and sparrows in the yard suffice.
Forever – is composed of Nows – ‘Tis not a different time – Except for Infiniteness – And Latitude of Home –
From this – experienced Here – Remove the Dates – to These – Let Months dissolve in further Months – And Years – exhale in Years –
Without Debate – or Pause – Or Celebrated Days – No different Our Years would be From Anno Dominies –
Rufus Towhee from yesterdayDowny woodpecker from other years
With Clocks, Carl Sandburg extends a warning that a focus on the measurement of time can distract us from using or enjoying the one we still have, since we don’t know when time will be cut short for good. Don’t focus on the perception of passage then, but what you can do to fill time with. (Never mind that that opens another problem set during a pandemic…)
HERE is a face that says half-past seven the same way whether a murder or a wedding goes on, whether a funeral or a picnic crowd passes. A tall one I know at the end of a hallway broods in shadows and is watching booze eat out the insides of the man of the house; it has seen five hopes go in five years: one woman, one child, and three dreams. A little one carried in a leather box by an actress rides with her to hotels and is under her pillow in a sleeping-car between one-night stands. One hoists a phiz over a railroad station; it points numbers to people a quarter-mile away who believe it when other clocks fail. And of course … there are wrist watches over the pulses of airmen eager to go to France…
White throated sparrow from yesterday
Sparrows from other years
And for good measure, let’s throw in the advice of Vietnamese Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh who died last month:
“While washing the dishes one should only be washing the dishes, which means that while washing the dishes one should be completely aware of the fact that one is washing the dishes.” Why? If we are thinking about the past or future, “we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes.” (from The Miracle of Mindfulness.)
Told you, it would be all over the map. Off to wash the dishes now.
Sandhill from yesterday. Music today in honor of my Opa who played the stand-up bass in a small-town orchestra named Fidelio. Here is a creative – and timely – version by the Washington National Opera of Beethoven’s Fidelio, with an explanation of how the new version came to be. Fidelio is a story of hope and resilience, a more desirable focus than speed of time…..
