Cycles
Today there is a brown thrasher singing at the top of a 60 foot sweetgum tree. It is another sign that the seasons are progressing to the degree dictated by our climate, and the thrasher is announcing the progression from winter to spring. It is always a surprise to me to see that bird at the top of the highest tree it can find, totally exposed to the entire world. If you know how very reclusive it is all the rest of the year, you know how odd it is to see it anywhere but under a bush thrashing through the leaves in search of things edible. It just seems so out of place up there. And yet, that’s where it belongs at this time of year, at this time in the cycle. The double notes are what sets the song of the brown thrasher apart from its close kin – the mockingbird. The latter will sing in a similar way, but it repeats the notes more than two or three times, usually. It really is pretty noticeable. Chances are these birds can be heard these days anywhere we happen to live, if we pay attention, and look up. Just like a person trying to get a message out, they seek the highest perch and start announcing.
Noah Evan, our latest grandchild, was born last night. He reminds me that his cycle is beginning today. If all the history of life, from the beginning, could be thought of as on a moving train, we boarded the train when we were born, and we will get off at the station appointed to us. During the time we are on the train, all of our life happens, and the train keeps moving all the while – my part of the train has picked up computers along the way, my father’s part of the train had none. But his part of the trai
n learned of automobiles for the first time. Now, Noah Evan has just boarded the train, and he will be carried along on it for the time he has. And I wonder what wonders the train will pick up while he is on it?
This picture has always had a cyclic feeling to it, for me. The elderberry flowers seem to symbolize promising new life and, the old brown leaf, life that has experienced the train ride.
The river is at 5.4 on the Butte La Rose gauge today, and it looks like it will take a stand, as they say, at about 5.5 for the next four or five days. The Mississippi and Ohio are still falling. No water coming yet.
Rise and Shine, Jim
Noah Evan, our latest grandchild, was born last night. He reminds me that his cycle is beginning today. If all the history of life, from the beginning, could be thought of as on a moving train, we boarded the train when we were born, and we will get off at the station appointed to us. During the time we are on the train, all of our life happens, and the train keeps moving all the while – my part of the train has picked up computers along the way, my father’s part of the train had none. But his part of the trai
n learned of automobiles for the first time. Now, Noah Evan has just boarded the train, and he will be carried along on it for the time he has. And I wonder what wonders the train will pick up while he is on it?This picture has always had a cyclic feeling to it, for me. The elderberry flowers seem to symbolize promising new life and, the old brown leaf, life that has experienced the train ride.
The river is at 5.4 on the Butte La Rose gauge today, and it looks like it will take a stand, as they say, at about 5.5 for the next four or five days. The Mississippi and Ohio are still falling. No water coming yet.
Rise and Shine, Jim
posted by jim | 5:36 PM
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