Deep Time

Here's what boggles my mind. I am made more tender toward the living world, more in awe, more in astonishment of its creation and more aware of a Divine Matrix or God or Goddess or whatever you want to call it...by my own consideration of "deep time".

And yet... to quote an article on Deep time (the concept that the Geologic time scale is vast because the Earth is very old):

"Following the Protestant Reformation, the Genesis creation stories were interpreted as holding that the Earth has existed for only a few thousand years. Proponents of scientific theories which contradicted scriptural interpretations could not only lose their academic appointments but were legally answerable to charges of heresy and blasphemy, charges which, even as late as the 18th century in Great Britain, sometimes resulted in a death sentence."

 I am glad I don't live in that time (do I?---sometimes I wonder) and I invite you to "grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time." (quoted from mathematician John Playfair  in 1788).

So, back to Oaks. This gives a whole new meaning to the word "primordial". 

Start with the age of the Earth (4.54 billion years, more or less).

Science indicates that something, something like an algal scum formed on land 1,200 million years ago. That's a lot of time with no life. But thus began the The Kingdom of Plantae.

Around 450 million years ago, the first land plants appeared. 30 million years later, plants developed roots, leaves seeds and secondary wood. That was when forests first began to appear.  I am throwing the word "million" around here. I don't know if you can take it in. I can't, not really. That's why, when we lose a species, or the structure that can support life it is such a big loss. It takes millions of years to evolve.

Oaks live side by side with pines and firs but they are a younger branch of the tree of life. The gymnosperms, the conifers--pines and firs-- are much older, arising around the Carboniferous, about 300 million years ago.

Then at oh, about around 245–202 million years ago, the ancestors of flowering plants diverged from gymnosperms, and the first flowering plants known to exist are from 140 million years ago.

Then here is another amazing thing. They diversified. That gave them the evolutionary advantage.   The Division or Phylum Angiosperms (flowering plants) replaced conifers as the dominant trees only around 60–100 million years ago. Only. Mere youngsters. Then they started to further complicate things, developing more specialized plant parts, pollen, leaves and more orderly arrangements of their roots, stems and leaves. Over a few more million years, the Oak would evelove into 2 clades or divisions called Eudicots  and then the Rosids before coming to its first ranked division, the Order: Fagales.

This group includes the Birch family, Betulaceae, the walnut family Juglandaceae, and many others, including the beech family, Fagaceae. From there, it is further subdivided down into the Genus Quercus. All the gloroius oaks of the world are in this genus and they are found in many states and may countries.

Of special note are Quercus robur (Pedunculate or common oak) and Quercus petraea (Sessile oak).  These are the oaks that grew all over Europe, and which inspired the druid Oak Knowers. More later!

Kingdom: Plantae; Phylum: Angiosperms (flowering plants); Eudicots; Rosids
Order: Fagales Family: Fagaceae Genus: Quercus Section: Quercus Species: Q. garryana

In the Presence of Elders

On Saturday, I felt overwhelmed and overworked. I knew what I had to do. I had to go visit the oaks.  Within minutes of entering the grove, I was calmed. Was this because I was in the presence of elders? Using the table below, I figure the Garry Oaks at American Camp Historical National Park to be about... 200-300 years old. I am fresh enough from visting my friend near White Salmon, where the poison oak understory is abundant, to be very grateful for an oak savannah that allows relaxed meandering, with grasses--mostly Ryegrass (Elymus glaucus) and Yorkshire fog (Holcus lanatus)--and mossy rocky knolls.

Circumference (inches)	Diameter (inches)	Conservative Age (years)	Average Age (years)
37.7	12	84	88
75.4	24	168	175
113.1	36	252	262
150.8	48	336	350
188.5	60	420	438
226.2	72	502	525

Source: http://www.savehelvetia.org/ourcase/white_oak.php

                                                                     
Meanwhile, the air was alive with robins. I did a little research on the lifespan of robins and while the information is surprisingly little, it seems they live a short life, with the oldest being about 8.5 years (in captivity).

  (Click here for source of photo.)

So, there we were, us and a whole lot more than my eye could see or brain comprehend, alive on this planet (estimated age: 4.54 billion years old). One rooted in the earth, one walking, one flying--on one day in December in 2011. That  small, huge fact changed my mood.

Uncage the Soul

This time-lapse video is so wonderful I just had to share it now, while I am off becoming an Oak Knower. Let it load for a good several minutes before watching. The name of their company is Uncage the Soul. Sometimes everything that needs to be said is in the title. What is the right way of seeing things? Perhaps this way is closer to the real way of things than our slow and attention-wandering, work-focused minds. Click here to see.

On Becoming An Oak Knower

I recently visited a friend outside of White Salmon.  As always, the walk into her grove of Oregon White Oaks was an excursion into an enchanted world.  I have always loved the space and “negative space” (Negative space, in art, is the space around and between the subject(s) of an image.) of winter trees. Combine that with lichen, moss and a few lingering golden leaves in the long shafts of a winter sun and you have … magic.

So let’s start with that. Magic, that is.  And maybe the nature of the Divine, which preceded and followed the walk in the Oak Grove.  

Source of image and quotes below: blogspot.com/2009/12/holy-oak-tree-religion.html

Oak Knower: “In Gaelic, “Druidh” is the compound of *dru + *uid = oak-knower. In the ancient Celtic society Druid was a name bestowed on a seer or visionary who possessed ‘oak knowledge.’

The Goddess: The pre-Christian world was the world of Celts, who worshiped nature. To the Celtic outlook, the land was the main goddess, the rivers were her helpers and they enriched the earth. Celts used to live in forests, where they were close to the nature and could learn the language of trees and wisdom of animals. With the appearance of Christianity ancient Celts didn’t disturb their close ties with nature; they connected their love to nature with the main principles of Christianity. Celtic monks lived in deep forests and wrote their religious works for the gifts of nature. The most important thing was to understand the divine origin of all things and god’s existence in nature. Celts saw life as a constantly changing circulation of life and death. Everything moved in a spiral and nature’s observation gave a possibility to find mechanism of development of the world.”

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When I got home to my own Oak Grove, I resolved to become an Oak Knower.  Yes, the tree of the San Juan Islands that I love best is the same Quercus garryana—the Garry Oak is the same as the Oregon White Oak.  The next few entries will explore the world of this sacred and amazing tree.

A Tribute For Ruffles

On the year of my 60^th birthday, I hear that you have gone missing. By the summer of 2011, your death is official, the oldest male in the Southern Resident Community. A gray box in the Orca ID guide will mark your life and death.  Your body has been laid to rest by the sea, a banquet for your neighbors.  

Photo by Erick Pierson

If the estimated year of your birth is accurate, you and I would have been born just months apart. We have led parallel lives on parallel planets that somehow holographically occupy the same point in space. My ocean kinsman, I am grateful for encounters with you, many more than I surely deserved.

Photo by Jami Rouge

Mostly, the limited views I had of you was like identifying a human from the top of their head only.  But in rare moments, in the time span of one breath, I was given the opportunity to try and really see you—to catch the momentary splendor of your strength and beauty when you cartwheeled.  I took in my breath as you surged and porpoised toward some new location; I watched you rest and travel in the middle of your pod, surrounded by the members of your clan. 

Photo by: Monika Wieland

Over the years, I saw the stateliness of your movements become more labored.  I could see you getting old. This observation I hold tenderly, because it is the true privilege of time spent with a known individual. You were a creature from another place, as alien as outer space, but I could see that you were slowing down.

Source: Trickster Wine

My true relationship with you has been fashioned of imagination, joined to your life in dreams and in the wanderings of my heart.  In ancient times, legends speak of Coyote or Raven and the Celtic seal person, the selkie—animal people who came to walk the land in human form. Now, without a culture that can hold such a vision communally, I must do it alone and in the secret spaces of my mind.  In that way, your death does not end my connection with you. As a spirit whale, you would be free to come with me to the Planet of Land. 

Source: Seattle Times

Such a thought makes me smile. How surprised you might be to find out I was more than a two legged creature on the shore or boat, making loud sounds of excitement over very move you made. I would take you to Thanksgiving tables, set with family and friends.  I would show you humans making art and serving their own, humans singing and inventing and gardening. I would also tell you about human schisms over race, religion and politics, and how full of lust we are for power, possessions and all things technological.  You had never known nuclear families like ours, nor the herd life of land animals fighting for dominance, territory and females. Unlike you, I would say, storms make humans scurry inside protective shelters and gravity binds us to the earth. Finally, I would explain the human hand that gave rise to so many things, good and bad.

I like to think of us walking on the sacred trails of the islands and then to the top of the hills and mountains, where we would rest and look out over vistas you have never seen. You would tell me you knew little of the lives of the strange creatures who move through the water in such different ways, sometimes nearly mowing whale families down in their haste to arrive, sometimes moving alongside the clans for hours at a time, sometimes silently skimming the water with a long structure you had observed for thousands of years. Perhaps you would recite an old orca legend, about salmon that once filled the waters and how, with the coming of humans, they catastrophically disappeared from your world.

When we had our fill of such stories, we would return to the water’s edge and slip beneath its opaque cover of dark blue. You would show me a world of sound and connection, for the water does not allow the concept of boundaries that my land planet does. You would tell me how the cold tempestuous waves swirl around your skin and how the only heat you had ever known was the warm milk of your mother and the hot blood that ran in your veins. You would show me salmon and herring, upwelling and tidal current and I would understand that all of it was you—for who can find the line between the things that give rise to life and the life that develops? I would recognize that the salt water I call ocean and Salish Sea is you. I would see the nations of the ocean planet beside you and understand that they cannot be separated from their home or from each other. I’d like to think that this conversation, without words, would occur like bell tones in our bodies.

An aside. I would hesitate to tell my spirit kinsman the name we have given him. The ruffled edge of his fin was his trademark but it never defined him.  Calling Ruffles Ruffles seems a bit like calling Lincoln Stretch or Benjamin Franklin Fluffy.  Or imagine perhaps Chief Seattle being dubbed Red. Nor would I describe how we watched and marked his movements. Imagine trying to know—say, the poet Billy Collins— in this way.  Yes, his literal bowel movements we could know, and the way he moved through space. “He is walking, he is sitting, he is sleeping.” We would know much about his animal life but this would not account for the deep wisdom of his soul and the way he lived his life.

No, I might just never mention it.  

Photo by Jeff Lorton

And so, for this tribute, I will use no name for you. The Salish language family has many sounds that mimic the sss . . . Sound of the Sea. Let this sound in my heart suffice for now. I salute you. You have held my focus on the world that gives rise to mine, the ocean planet that sustains life. From your existence, I have learned much about my own. I will keep alive your stories and use your charisma to talk about the fragile and powerful place that created and nourished you.  I trust the great mystery of your being will continue to accompany me. I am simply and profoundly grateful to have witnessed your presence.

Chickadee Magic and Dark Nights

The dark has arrived. I wake up gleeful to have an extra hour--yay, 7AM turned into 6AM! But this afternoon, as I prepare the ground for garlic and race the end of the day to get it all done, I am not gleeful anymore. This is transition time. The seasons demand that we pay attention. The long black nights proclaim the time of dreaming.

And chickadees. My grandmother Marion loved chickadees and I have always felt they embodied her spirit. Look closely at this common bird. We so easily think we know everything about anything that is "common".  Truth is, this concept keeps us form learning as much about those species as I might about an animal considered exotic.

I found a lovely site that listed all kinds of facts I did not know about chickadees. Click here if you want to go to that site. Did you know that:

• Research has shown that while Chickadees are regular visitors to feeders, over 75 to 80 percent of their winter food supply still comes from natural sources.
• When the temperature falls below 10 degrees, research has shown that the survival rate of chickadees almost doubled when they had access to feeders, this resulted in an overall higher winter survival rate of 69% versus a 37% survival rate for populations without access to feeders."

Okay. Stop there and take it in. They mate for life. And when it's cold they really need some help to survive. And they need your natural plantings as well.  Here's more:

• "Have you noticed how ravenously the birds eat at your bird feeders, especially first thing in the morning and just before dusk? Chickadees can gain as much as 10 percent of their body weight each day and lose it all again during a cold winter night.
• Chickadees are a tough little bird that do not migrate. During cold weather Chickadees have been found to need twenty times more food than they do in summer.
• They like to eat seeds, suet and even coconut.
• Chickadees weigh less than one-half of an ounce.

Image via Wikipedia

Carolina Chickadee

• The oldest banded Black-capped Chickadee recaptured in the wild had lived 12 years and 5 months."

Chick-a-dee-dee. I am going out to feed the birds.

Magic in Our Islands

 I looked up at the waxing gibbous moon last night. The foggy mists of the dark night trailed over her face, like a lace veil.  In that moment, I decided to create this new blog. As a writer, I am compelled to use words to describe the beauty around me. A blog is the perfect vehicle to share it with you, the reader. Come with me, day by day, as I find magic in our islands.

This defintion is from Universe Today.
"A gibbous moon is one of the phases of the Moon, when the size of the illuminated portion is greater than half but not a full Moon.
The period between a first quarter moon and a full moon is known as a waxing gibbous moon, because the illuminated region of the Moon is increasing from day to day."