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September 23, 2003
Autumnal Equinox
Blown between extremes.Autumn is only in passing; passing from hot to cold, light to dark, lush to barren. Half way between falls the Equinox: a point of balance, of equal tension twixt.
A hurricane blew by, worrying the weather forecasts for a week, but ultimately sparing us its extreme. Birdwatchers were hoping for some rarities to be blown in with the wild weather. Storm-strays are a genuine phenomenon, but we are always half-wishing for the “normal” scene to be blown away; for the World to offer up its unknown wonders in some dizzy display of novelty. Not much happened this time around; the birds are the same ones we expect to see this time of year; the ones that “should” be here, and that’s fine with me. Novelty vies with Tradition, but everything that was new grows old, along with the Year. If we tend the new things properly, they may weather the Winter, and remain with us, growing into the new traditions.
Next it was the Dalai Lama blew through, on a milder breeze, no doubt. His is an old tradition, but more or less new to us in the West. He’s no novelty in the Park, though, this being the second time he’s packed the East Meadow with a rock star-sized crowd. You could hear the chanting half a mile away. His fans are better behaved than a lot of Park-goers, and it would be unseemly for me to resent his presence, but I do have to chuckle at a guy who practices humility while bearing the appellation “his holiness.” I guess that’s what you call a spiritual mystery.
I have nothing against Buddhism, but I prefer to practice my local Tradition. It may be an index of the debasement of Western spirituality that so many are attracted to an exotic faith. I can’t really blame them, especially at a time when the “peoples of the Book” are so politically polarized that they seem to have lost sight of the text. It’s my faith that whatever is crucial to the spirit must be available to everyone, and can be found through any Tradition, if practiced appropriately. Maybe it can be found without tradition, just by learning to live appropriately. That, in and of itself, would constitute a fine new Tradition.
I think a lot of the Lama’s followers are still searching. After the event they dispersed throughout the north end of the Park. I was watching birds from the bluff where stands the Blockhouse, (a traditional lookout point, older than the Park itself,) when I was unsettled by a parade of seekers who’d wandered into the North Woods. Mostly mild-looking young white people, college types with backpacks, and rather a contrast to the lurking gang-bangers and homeless who typically frequent the site. By walking a narrow ledge you can get around the Blockhouse, reaching the steep north edge of the bluff, which provides a good view into the treetops. From there you can look out into Ash and Hackberry, Oak and Elm. But your body can go no further; the rest is vision. The afternoon acolytes seemed confused; they kept brushing past me, but all they could do was circle the battlement and go back the way they came. If they had stopped to lift a binocular they might have seen the newly arrived Dark-eyed Juncos, a harbinger of Fall. But that’s often how it is: we don’t see what’s right in front of us. Hence the attraction of the exotic, which stands out by virtue of its novelty.
A spiritual tradition should be like a binocular, allowing us to see into a world that lies hidden right in front of our eyes. If we look far enough we may collapse the distance that renders the East exotic. We will learn to respect other Traditions as complements to our own, but we need not view them as replacements.
After the storm and the priest in orange, it was only the birds blowing through, on a trip that bridges the seasons. They successfully inhabit two worlds, though theirs are north and south, not east and west. They seem so native to our woods and meadows that it’s hard to remember that they spend much of the year flitting through the exoticism of the tropics, where they are just as much at home. We might learn something about the Mystery of Distance from them. I keep trying, but it’s tough, picking up bits and pieces, here and there, from year to year. Each one is treasured, for there’s no use in seeking except to find. But in the end, the birds are like all our experience in Life: seen but in passing.
September 1, 2003
Holding Pattern
...still hovering...but that’s the nature of hovering: to continue, in the same place; position suspended in passing time; standing still and moving all at once...
hovering...
still...
August is gone, a month without a single Holiday, but now it’s September, and Labor Day. For me, the celebration rings ironic, as I’m on indefinite holiday...
...hovering...
Being out of work, I’ve had as much time as I could want for birdwatching.
Hovering around the Park as fall migration begins in earnest, I’ve been watching a couple of avian hover-artists lately. Vertebrate flight is amazing in and of itself, but hovering is a special case, and requires another level of effort. Most birds can accomplish it only briefly. Many songbirds practice what’s known as hover-gleaning, a momentary “pause” in a short flight to pick off a berry or an insect from the tip of a twig. These are typically small, flighty birds, and the behavior manifests as a natural facet of their buoyant flight style. More unexpected is the hovering of the Belted Kingfisher.
The Kingfisher is a curiously proportioned bird, over a foot long, with much of that size concentrated in its large, crested head and long bill. The top-heavy bird looks rather ungainly flying with its rowing wingbeats, but the shocking thing is to see it stop in mid air and hover laboriously over the waters of the Pool. The tension of the unlikely scene is only broken when it spies a fish or frog, or some invertebrate. Then, of a sudden, the bird folds its wings and plunges straight down, head first into the water, like a living harpoon, to nab its unsuspecting prey.
If the Kingfisher seems an improbable hoverer, it’s in comparison to the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, which epitomizes the art. Hovering is at the heart of the Hummingbirds’ lifestyle. Their wings pump so fast they blur towards invisibility, such that the birds appear to hang in the air without any labor at all, even though they must actually work at a very high metabolic rate in order to stay aloft.
Hummingbirds are just plain preternatural. Their flight is so specialized that it seems more like an insect’s than a bird’s. They hover before flowers, cruising through the Touch-me-nots along the Loch, probing for nectar with their long, thin bills. Then they zip off on a beeline, changing direction instantaneously. And they are able to move in any direction, up, down, even backwards, at will. With their miraculous powers of flight, and jewel-like, iridescent colors, Hummingbirds appear all but magical. Like fairies, they are ever found among flowers, tiny beings suspended in a thrumming dream of unfolding blooms and flowing nectar...
Or so it seems to a lazy viewer on holiday at the end of Summer...
...hovering...
I suppose even the magic of the Hummingbird is an illusion, the evanescent image of hard work. For me, a new direction is less easily achieved. The clumsy Kingfisher rattling from its perch is closer to my method.
But I’ve been working for years, and I thought I’d take a little time off before diving back in...
Hovering can’t go on forever, can it?