Living on the Edge

The riparian zone is the place where a stream and land meet. It is often a place where a chaordic (chaos and order) state exists. It is a place rich with variety even though it might be a tangle of alder, cottonwood, blackberry, snowberry, thistle, and poison oak. It is a place of safety for many small creatures and on this land they are the Cottontail Rabbit, squirrels, and songbirds. Many mornings our neighbor's cat makes its rounds along the edge.

If you've ever walked in a riparian zone you'll notice that it is rich with life, whereas if you venture deep into the wildwoods it is filled with less variety. As magnificent as the ancient trees are they reveal less life than do the edges.

If one goes toward our creek (now dry) the water striders are gliding across the surface of the water. Have you seen water striders as they move across the surface of the water? The ends of their legs push down on the water surface like a finger poking into plastic wrap. These insects belong to the Gerridae family. They have non-wetting legs and it is their structural design, not the wax coating that allows them to skim across the surface of the water.

The pond they call home will soon be a memory, but come winter it will be 4 feet deep and home for the Rough-Skinned Newt. I've seen this amphibian all over the Pacific Northwest. This slow moving, orange belly creature is toxic. However, for humans it would need to be ingested. Maybe it should have a warning label: Harmful when ingested. I guess if I were starving there would be that temptation. The newt has disappeared during this hot, dry phase of our climate.

This land is a place where the cultivated and the wild live side-by-side. In wildland firefighting terms it is the wildland-urban interface. No one would mistake this area for urban though. An environmentalist I once studied with wrote a book called The Comedy of Survival. Joseph Meeker draws a comparison in literature to our efforts in creating an environmental ethic. In one of the chapters he compares the pastoral with the picaresque. This term comes from the Spanish word, picaro. Rogue.

We live on the edge between the pastoral and the rogue; between the cultivated and the wild; where the riparian zone continues to reach out from its hold on the shore. Tentacles of blackberry and alder reach further and further into the field. Putting down roots wherever they can. It is like our own neural net making new connections when we learn. Here it is the earth reaching and expanding into new territory. It is a dance we play with keeping life wild and orderly. Too much order and the place begins to look like a formal garden in England or China. However, there is a calming aspect to this order.

If we let the land just take care of itself then it becomes a jumble of native and invasive plants. That disorder is less appealing as a preferred living environment. In the city I have seen people who have let their dandelions grow and the grass go to seed. I've preferred a blend, a little order and serenity nearby the house and wildness where it is easily seen and experienced. (We aren't talking about wilderness, which should be left to its own life.)

I guess it is like the taming of one's mind. If we hold too tight and structure our mental processes, we lose the creativity. But if we let the mind run wherever it goes, then we live a very chaotic and unpredictable life. This land is a place to contemplate and meditate on the variegated nature of our relationship with the natural world and our own mind.

Good night from the edge of the wildwoods.