#9 Critters and Other Creations

Seeing a flower
Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time -

like to have a friend takes time.

Georgia O'Keefe

I’ve spent a lot of my life observing people: students in classrooms, colleagues in meetings, friends and family in laughter and tears, strangers squeezed onto buses, passing by in city crowds, in lines at train stations and at packed theaters. Now I also get to observe the natural world around me with as much fascination.

Not that everything I get to absorb visually is new, but with this transition in my life, I’m more likely to stop and really look, like bending to this poppy about to pop.

Forest flowers emerging after the snows and rains are especially welcoming, sprites of color. Here, purple forest orchid,

yellow lace, pink clover flower, magenta shooting star, white trillium. (Actually, I don’t know if those names are real ‘cause Urban Girl hasn’t studied flower identification as much as she has identified the tenets of social structural analysis, the use of the subjunctive in English and hip hop spoken word rhythms. Help with flower identification is welcome!)

They really do go “gobble gobble gobble”
Wild turkeys are making a come back; I remember two years ago first hearing with amazement the strange, throaty shrill trill. Now up and down the road several small flocks of turkeys roam freely. The cocks strut their stuff when challenged, turning their phalanx of feathers to the interloper as if to show how tough their beauty makes them. I for one am always impressed.

In Woods Wisdom One, we learn about tracking; here are turkey tracks (right) , along with a set of deer tracks (below) not far away.

Deer themselves are rather too common to share by photo, not to mention too fleet of feet for me to get their picture , as are the spry jack rabbits that scoot across the road, their tall perked ears ever giving them the advantage when I want a closer look.

An alligator lizard was found crouching behind a wall, and I dug a newt out of the woodpile and set it free. The most unusual creature I have seen was a ring-tailed cat spied last summer waddling through the forest followed by four little ones waddling behind, a critter that is a cross between a cat, a raccoon and a weasel; I hope the family will return.

The ability to see diverse creations in nature and to name them holds delight, especially in a world where our eco-diversity is so threatened, and many of us have lived as strangers to and alienated from the natural world. We can name more television shows we know than flora and fauna.

Of course, my favorite critter is my wild dog made companion, here demonstrating the yoga he teaches me: Down Dog.

The sounds of the raven's wings whooshing across the sky, the sight of the green glow of newborn ferns and grasses, the hills alive with the bounty of nature: wherever we are, may we feel this blessing of spring.