When my brother was in town for a visit this summer, he spent some time musing about childhood experiences he'd like to share with his own sons. One memory was of running through grassy fields and hearing many grasshoppers whirring away in all directions. I wish he could have been along last week when I walked up to the prairie plantings on campus and heard the dry patter of grasshoppers launching off, so many that it sounded like a brief hard rain shower. I also had to think of him another morning when I checked out the cone flowers pictured above. I discovered a grasshopper sluggish enough in the morning coolness that it didn't jump and I was able to get a photo. And then I spotted another, and another, and another, all shades from grass green to traditional grasshopper brown. And they were all in nearly the same position, sunning their backs. This one is for you, Don. How many grasshoppers can you spot? 
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More patterns from the prairie plantings, mostly featuring a plant I don't remember seeing before -- 
I'm not sure whether this last one is a mind-reading act or a friendly head massage. 
The prairie plantings on campus are full of color. Earlier this summer, the campus staff mowed the plantings by the music center and the dorms, hoping to delay the blooming so that students -- most of whom aren't around in July -- would be able to enjoy the show when they return to campus. The plantings by the railroad are tall and exuberantly in full bloom; the mowed areas are shorter but still splashed with color, and catching the light in their own quiet way. 
Tuesday was a typical northern Indiana, transition-into-winter day, one that could make you gloomy just looking out the window. Warm though, with a forecast for below-freezing temperatures the rest of the week, so I found time to go out with my camera. It took about half the walk, heading out from the house, to shed the writing project I had been working on. The scenery didn't help -- bare tree branches, gray skies, prairie plantings full of blackened, weedy stems. I didn't even bother pulling my camera out of my pocket. When I got to the southwest corner of campus, a couple little rusty-capped sparrows flew up from the grasses to take refuge in nearby bushes. They caught my wandering attention. I listened to them sing and started looking more closely at the weeds and grasses nearby. I found silver and gold, and evidence that the birds had been enjoying the banquet spread out before them. 
Here's some color to store up for the gray winter days ahead -- yellow highlights spotted amidst the prairie plantings on campus this past week. 
Coneflower, bee balm, daisies, foxglove, butterfly weed, grasses -- the summer prairie is at its most colorful. The bees and the finches are loving it, as am I. 
Secret message on a coneflower
A golden bee enjoying the bee balm
Dancing in the sunlight
Fur-clad bee
The coreopsis are still gilding the prairie plantings on campus, but the arrival of the next batch of performers is imminent -- there are buds everywhere you look. 
Judy M tells me that another name for the spiderwort is Trinity Flower -- for obvious reasons. They continue to bloom amidst the prairie plantings on campus, where I've been enjoying the interplay of light and shadow on green leaves and flowers. There are a host of buds just about to burst into bloom -- an ever-changing canvas. 
The prairie plantings on campus are full of golden sunshine right now -- the golden yellows of coreopsis, or tickseed, and the bright light of June sunshine through green leaves. There are green flames everywhere and in an amazing variety of shapes. 
The prairie plantings on campus are mostly yellow with tickseed at the moment. I continue to be intrigued by the occasional purple spiderwort -- with thanks to Barbara T. for alerting me to the name of this native plant. Whatever its name, it seems to be celebrating light and springtime. 
Creation is a song, a song that we can see, a sacred gift from God, let's join the harmony. This chorus has been singing in my head all week. We sang it at church Sunday, # 24 in Sing the Journey, to the accompaniment of a soft, steady drum beat. It was written by Doug and Jude Krehbiehl, inspired by the writings of Lawrence Hart, a Cheyenne peace chief and Mennonite, and by Cheyenne Spiritual Songs.You can hear Jude sing the chorus and first verse here. The verses celebrate many scenes from creation and I find they trigger a treasure trove of memories for me. I sing The rolling of the oceans, and I find myself standing on Goleta Beach watching the waves roll in, or floating in the warm waters of the second beach at Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio in Costa Rica. I sing the bubbling of a spring, and I am standing in the middle of the woods at Camp Friedenswald, watching the gentle simmer of clear spring water stir the fall leaves floating there. I sing the night sky filled with jewels and I remember a pre-dawn winter morning when I stepped outside to get the paper and the stars were strewn like jewels across black silk -- and then one star stirred to life and streaked across the sky. I sing a flock of beating wings, and I'm in a car with the family the week before Easter, traveling across Saskatchewan on our way to Edmonton, with the sky overhead a complex interweaving of rivers and rivers of birds migrating north, and the song A River of Birds, by Libana, appropriately playing on the tape recorder. And here's a few photos to go with some of the other phrases: 
Dancing prairie meadow....
And the last verse: Every glowing sunset, every outstretched leaf is witness to the glory of the One who sits as Chief. 
The Brothers Grimm needed the help of a dwarf with a funny name to spin straw into gold, but around here, all we need is a good dose of sunshine and suddenly, behold, the old is given new life. 
On a recent walk across campus on a gray, wet day, John looked at the gray, wet prairie plantings, and shook his head at how dreary and dead it all looked. It does rather bring to mind the Ghost of Prairie Past these days, especially when, as in the photo below, there's a flurry of snowflakes in the air. 
A closer look foretells the Ghost of Prairie Yet to Come. I wonder how many seeds are held in all those seed clusters, of so many different shapes? There is a strong theme of ghostly gray and pale beige, and yet even on a gray day, glimpses of gold can be found. 
These past few weeks I've been fascinated by the variety of seed shapes and seed carriers I've found in the prairie plantings on campus. Perhaps that's why my attention was caught by Parker Palmer's seasonal metaphor in A Hidden Wholeness, his book about his work with circles of trust. Usually when I think of new beginnings and seeds, I think of spring. But Palmer begins with fall when he develops a seasonal cycle as a metaphor for what happens in the inner journey of discovery. "We often start our groups in the fall, a time when work begins again for many people, following a summer break--and nature begins her work again by dropping and scattering seeds. In this season of new beginnings, a circle of trust might inquire into the 'seed of true self.' What seed was planted when you or I arrived on earth with our identities intact? How can we recall and reclaim those birthright gifts and potentials?" p. 81 Here's a few photos of seeds about to be dropped and scattered, for you to muse on as you ponder your own seeds and new beginnings. 
The seasons keep on turning. We're entering late fall, with most but not all of the leaves down. Branches may be bare, but the grass is still green, a few flowers are still dancing in the prairie plantings, and the red leaves on the viburnum and Japanese maple are still hanging on. Plenty of plants have turned brown, though, setting seed or going dormant. On a gray November day it can get depressing, even though those seeds are a promise that spring will come again and many plants need that dormancy period, their sabbath rest. And when I walk past the prairie plantings in the early morning, or at dusk, a frolic of finches darts about, delighting in the feast of seeds spread out before them. They are a soft, warm brown, having set aside their golden summer coats for their traditional winter garb. Earth too is gradually shedding her vibrant summer dress, snuggling into the browns and grays of late fall, getting ready for winter. And on days like today, the sun and clouds take turns, highlighting the intriguing patterns of dried seedheads. 
 We had our first frost the night before last, so yesterday we woke to a frost covered yard. The rest of the day was clear and sunny, so mid-afternoon I wandered over to the prairie plantings on campus to see how things were doing. There is quite a mix of flowers gone to seed and flowers still opening blooms.  I was examining some seed heads when two grade school children from a nearby house waded through the plantings to see what I was doing. They were friendly and curious, so we talked about the prairie plants for awhile before the brother headed back to their swing set. His sister stayed and watched. I was trying to get a photo of a big brown grasshopper, but it kept leaping away. She tried to catch it for me and told me about finding little green grasshoppers in the field earlier. I told her that this one might be one of those -- that they get bigger and browner as they get older. She nodded and thought about the way things change color as they get older. "Like grandmas!" she said, looking at my white hair with a big smile. "Like grandmas," I agreed, though I'm not one yet. Grandmas and grasshoppers and all things grow and change. This past week we slipped from summer into autumn, and the trees are beginning to turn vibrant colors, and the smaller plants are turning brown. Or white, like grandmas. Either way, there is an abundance of seeds, so the cycle of growth and change will continue. To everything .....turn, turn, turn...... There is a season.....turn, turn, turn.... And a time to every purpose, under heaven.   The new and the old -- more purple coneflowers 
This past week John and I flew north to spend a week with his parents in Edmonton. As usual, our time included a trip outside the city, traveling across rolling prairie under the big sky, to the acreage where Ike and Millie have a small cabin, a garden, and a forest of shimmering poplar trees. We harvested potatoes and beets, ate a picnic lunch in the fall sunshine and enjoyed golden poplars, blue sky, and red-orange virginia creeper -- and the sight and sound of what was probably several hundred sandhill cranes gathering for their migration south. 
Beet harvest
Sock monkey potato
Enjoying a picnic stew
Watching the fire
As we were getting ready for lunch, we heard a noisy clattering, and it wasn't Santa and his reindeer. Looking up, we spotted a large flock high in the sky, circling in an updraft. Millie says that both geese and sandhill cranes are about ready to migrate. Going by the height and the noise, we assume that these were cranes. If you look closely above, you can see two of the three flocks that eventually came together.
I didn't have the right video equipment to do this justice, but below is a short clip to give you a glimpse and a bit of the sound. Unfortunately the website is not letting me change the orientation to match the vertical way I recorded it, and the focus isn't as sharp as I'd like. So you may have to squint a bit to see the specks of birds circling, listen hard to hear the clatter, and turn your computer sideways to get the right orientation. But perhaps you'll be able to imagine a bit of how amazing it was. 
There was just enough breeze the other night to make this web dance slightly in the light, sending out shimmers of light which caught my attention -- and then, fortunately, enough of a lull that the photo came out as something other than a blur. 
This metallic green bee appeared to have dipped his pantaloons in bright yellow paint. 
Dragonfly at rest -- and then catching the light. 
I wandered campus this afternoon, searching for sparks of light. At first I thought I wasn’t going to find anything – a dry, overcast day doesn’t tend towards the same interplay of light and shadow, or of light on water, as a sunshiny day or a wet day. As I looked more closely, I enjoyed the interplay of two different sorts of moments of light: interactions with people, and the light in the plants. Usually when I walk on campus it is early morning, or early evening, and there aren’t many people around. Today students and profs were scurrying between classes, and I exchanged greetings with six or seven people I knew. One, seeing that I was prowling with my camera, directed me to this tree on the southeast corner of the Ad building which she described as “practically iridescent, even in this light.”  Another was checking the progress of the prairie plantings on campus. We stopped to chat about how well they are doing – even the section by the tracks that the train company had sprayed just after the college seeded that area. The black eyed susans, mulleins, cone flowers and grasses had already been catching my eye. Here’s a medley, along with a tree branch or two. The sun even came out towards the end of my stroll, bringing out the light of the plants. |
My approach to contemplative photography --
"Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." Mary Oliver in "Sometimes" Categories
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