Migrations

It has been a couple weeks since I've actually had time to match the pace of the land. Two weeks of leaving in the dark and coming home in the dark. Thanksgiving is tomorrow and I look forward to be able to walk the land and see what has happened. Even in the dawning light I can sometimes here the call of migrating geese. Likely they are Canadian Geese. There is a pond just down the road and I have seen around a dozen geese floating. We are only a few miles from the Finley Wildlife Refuge and when we drive along the highway toward Corvallis there are hundreds and hundreds of waterfowl in the morning light. Just a couple miles away, on Dawson Road, I saw that the Great White Egrets were in the fields. Then further down Highway 99 the Tundra Swans flew overhead. These swans winter over here.

Migrations are a part of life and are part of the movement of time. There is a rhythm to life. If we are so busy charging ahead and see life in a straight line then it is easy to miss the migrations of life. It is a movement; a swirling of energy that takes the form of geese, wildebeest, humans, hummingbirds, or tarantulas. Mass movements of creatures in response to the environment: solar and lunar cycles, food or water shifts.

There are other subtler movements that we can pay attention to. One in this part of the country is return of many different creatures that rise vertically and then return to the humus. Mushrooms. There are fanatics in this part of the world. Stories abound about mushroom hunters shooting at each other to protect a spot. The mushrooms we have on the land are not ones that I'd try to eat. Who knows what they are. Some friends and I were hiking in the coast range and found a lot of chantrelle mushrooms. I also saw this Amanita muscaria alongside the trail. This bright red and white mushroom is iridescent in the gray and green hues of the coastal rain forest. I remember the first time I saw one of these on the flanks of Mt. Baker in northern Washington State. Strange how this memory sticks with me. It is a mushroom that is considered poisonous. It has also been used as a psychoactive substance in Siberia and with the nations of SE Alaska.


There are hundreds of mushrooms on the land. They are real small and of all different shapes. The rhizomes penetrate the soil. These tendrils of life make their way through the soil and the fruiting bodies (what we call mushrooms) pop up to the surface. Though the Amanita muscaria is a beauty, it is the dark mushrooms around here that add splashes of white and brown.

Here's praise for the small things of life; the muted tones; and life's simple pleasures.