Hemlocks (Endurance, Resilience)

February, 2020

“If we surrendered to earth’s intelligence, we could rise up rooted, like trees….”

— Rainer Marie Rilke 

I’ve come to pay homage to the Hemlocks….there is no path, just soft indents in the snow suggesting where it had been a few weeks ago when I last snowshoed to the grove at the end of the Burroughs Trail.

 A sign at the trailhead gives acknowledgement to the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) who preserved this land for generations. How many, I cannot know, perhaps hundreds or even thousands of years. I can feel my feet trodding where others have gone, and still go. 

The Ojibwe aptly call February the month of the Snow-Crusted Moon, and if it weren’t for the occasional red trail markers painted on the trees, it would be nearly impossible to find my way…so much of the familiar is obscured and hidden. The snow came on hard, and early, forcing saplings to bend to its will. The deeply blanketed forest holds a series of hoops, like some haphazardly designed croquet field. I free some from the grip of the deep snow, and their supple trunks spring back, resilient. 

Everywhere is evidence of survival. Acorns are tucked into holes of hollow logs, trails of chewed maple seeds mark the entrance of tiny burrows, a network of tracks in the snow reveals the scurrying actions of red squirrels and mice. Tunnels give entrance to the subnivean zone underneath the snowpack, at ground level…a world of relative insulated warmth where rodent life goes on, unseen and protected.

The air is crisp, and biting cold. A sharp wind rises from the half-frozen Lake just beyond the cliffs and gorges where the Hemlocks grow.  Here on the northern tip of Madeline Island, tracts of Eastern Hemlock forests still thrive. The deep gorges and rough terrain allowed some older trees to escape logging and fire, and their progeny are able to thrive in lower light levels than any other tree here. With a lifespan that can reach 800 years, its survival is a testament to longevity, tenacity, and slow endurance. It is a rarity, a remnant from a fast-disappearing world of dark night skies and silence. 

The cold and solitude sharpens my senses, and a Raven chuckles at me overhead. I hear the whistling cries of two, then three, and then five eagles riding the wind in circles above me, exalted. I watch, transfixed, until they break formation and fade into tiny dots…my eyes watering from both bright sunlight and tears of wonderment.  

Paths are made by walking…and so I forge on, my snowshoes crunching loudly through the thin, brittle crust of ice, my cheeks numbing, toward the beckoning shelter of the Hemlock grove. To stand in their dark wisdom is a religious experience…their trunks form a cathedral to the sky, shafts of sunlight catching glints of minute sparkling snowflakes drifting down from their soft-needled, swaying branches. Time stands still. In the deepest silence, I can hear myself breathing, my heartbeat in my ears.  

These trees exude an ancient and deep knowing. I wonder what they have seen, witnessed, endured.  They welcome me back unconditionally, their tiny elfin cones scattered like confetti at my feet, joyful brown patterns on the stark white snow. Wordless, I lean against a solid trunk, and listen. The wind whooshes and sighs, the soft rhythm of waves moving below washes my mind clear. Grounded and rooted, I am held as these trees have held their ground… for many generations past and many to come.

Nature Is Ever At Work

November, 2019

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“Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another”

— John Muir

It started happening in August… the first scarlet branches reached out across a backdrop of deep green, and whispered a warning, “Winter is Coming.” It feels almost here; the bite of cold nips my cheeks, and barren branches reach up into a frosty sky filled with bright sunlight that holds no warmth. The air carries the crisp autumn smells of decay, tannins and dark humus. 

I kick through the thick layer of leaves on the ground, symphony of colors unfolding in their turn… the red maples, the bronze burnished oaks with their abundance of acorns, the fiery sugar maples. Sunny yellow birch and amber-glowing aspen—their branches once graced by quivering gold coins—falling in cascades on the wind, swirling into hollows, floating reflectively on dark water. Science can explain this symphony… chlorophyll disappears as the plant’s solar food factory shuts down for the season, revealing other compounds with complicated-sounding names—carotenoids, flavonoids, anthocyanins. Like a painter’s palette, these pigments produce the colors, but we still can’t explain the symmetry, patterns, and sheer variety Nature puts on for this final blaze of glory. This belongs to the realm of magic, artistry, and wonder.

Now is a time for harvest, for gathering… not only for food and firewood for the winter, but also for taking stock; sifting and winnowing through our human efforts, our summer’s wild hopes and dreams… some realized, and some that will require another season (or several) to come to fruition. We, like the plants and animals, must operate within this circular timeline of nature. I wander these forest trails seeking reflection, taking solace in the deep solitude and the comfort of this natural rhythm. 

As autumn unfolded, the macrocosm of the canopy was at times almost too breathtaking to absorb… against a backdrop of pure azure blue sky the contrasting golds and reds sang out loudly. I am oddly grateful to see the trees enter into a time of rest, to see the simplicity of branches and underlying forms.

I tune my attention to the microcosm of processes occurring underfoot… the eternal processes of death, decay, and resurrection. Just off the path lies a fallen White Birch (Betula papyrifera) log, and a crack in its flaking bark holds a tiny world within, full of life. A minute Red Maple (Acer rubrum) seedling—no doubt the progeny of the canopy overhead—has taken root and completed its first life cycle, proudly displaying a few fledgling red leaves. Looking closer, in this one log, I see death is but an illusion. Its outer shell of bark merely holds its former shape, while inside all of the various organisms and physical forces of decomposition are slowly working their quiet alchemy, creating spongy earthen-scented humus that speaks to my soul of something ancient and primordial. Mosses creep into cracks and crevices, filling them with their glowing green light.

As the final crescendo dies down, with this year’s crop of leaves shed, the sugars stored away for next year’s growth, we enter the fallow time. Birdsong gives way to a silent hum, low notes, and a quiet, almost imperceptible rhythm of time.  Soon all will be covered under a blanket of white, these trails will carry the gliding strokes of skiers, and deep silence will enfold the woods.