Nature Trails to God

Lone Stag in Snowy Forest -
His majesty is reflected in the grandeur of all living beings,
His uniqueness in the solitude of the lone forest creature,
His coming - in the unexpected beauty that can surprise us,
Suddenly taking shape out of a frosty, silent world.

May His appearing in your life this day
Be all majestic, all unique, all amazing!

Seeking Eagle in Winter -
To the soul that seeks and to the heart that hungers:
may you find this very moment His most lavish provision;
the gift of life through His Son Jesus.


About Shadows
The short first segment is about over. We are nearing the cluster of mailboxes where cedar clumps close to the asphalt, immersing us in its feathery shadows. Until one truly begins to dissect its minutiae, shade is only shade. But present pondering tells me shade is far from being a mere blob of eclipse. The variables of tree - stem and stalk and leaf – are immense, staggering in their ability to design. Each is eddied in the current of its surroundings: each respondent to a light stirring breeze; atmospheric conditions, whether humid or arid; or the change as minute by minute slowly, surely, the earth turns upon its axis.

At the outset this was not a journey, I must confess, that I looked forward to; covering same ground day after day can produce heavy ennui. First, I must contend with the dog. For no matter how many times we make our rounds, she is consistently, wildly ecstatic: titanic wagging competes with capers, ridiculously high. She waits for this daily walk; lives for it. So it behooves me to establish the rule of law from the start. She has to sit on command and she must measure her steps to mine as we edge our way out the ranch gate.

After her I must contend with myself. Yeller’s pleasures may be simple; we cover this same ground day after day, and still her ardor never cools. But I on the other hand too often feel only irritation when contemplating another forty-five minutes over territory that has become blandly all-too familiar. But this morning after looking around for something distracting to engage the intellect, my eye came to rest on the commonplace. And there it paused. The patterns of light and dark shuttering the road beyond beckoned me and I determined to use these and this time to sharpen my powers of observation and description.

Shadows change, as over eons trees change - by growing. Rainfall, carbon dioxide content of soil, wind currents, transpiration of moisture, photosynthesis, general climate, and the density or lack thereof of the stands they are a part of all have their effect on tree growth and cambium activity. These factors and myriad others, as well as seasonal cycling, work to modify the tree – fill out its trunk, increase its height, lengthen its limbs, and leaf out its branches – which in turn modifies the size, shape, and complex arrangement, to the nth degree, of the shadow it casts. But at this moment I see only the consequence and not the action. Trees appear quiescent models at the mercy of an artist free to move about and forge a thing of singular beauty from their mostly stationary selves.

My deep study is momentarily interrupted. My dog, never a successful mood-hider, is showing me she’s a happy girl; because of the direction our course is taking, she knows we will not be heading home just yet. Picking up her pace, she pulls at her lead; I pull back. She lolls her tongue at me, laughs in my face; I laugh back. I note her stumpy, morning shadow with its bracket vee of a tongue, and for the moment I enter into her buffoonery. But only for a moment, for I to my meditations must hasten.

I now note the shadows have stretched out, turning linear. Glancing to the left, I see it is the oaks that are making these long, tall people, the sun’s position behind them bequeathing its poetic power, urging them on. In unrelieved stretches of sun I must at times travel through, I too can feel its power acting upon me. But it gives me little to talk about as regards the present subject. In nature as in literature, it is contrast not uniformity that fascinates and interests.Marbled shade greets me next. It is the oaks again but the leaves and not the trunks are masters this time, weaving a pattern that is unique to the present, likely without possibility of duplication through infinite time. For I am thinking that if this pattern, at some future date is to replicate, then without exception each and every component working together with each and every other component to produce this particular pattern, must ossify faithful to this tiny wink in time. And the odds against that happening have to be immeasurable. "Let’s do this again is impossible; we can only do something similar.

But these while affording much fodder for thought, form but a small patch and Yeller and I pass through in no time to begin our graded descent to the cul-de-sac. As the trunks take over once more, shadows quickly become dark chalk, narrowly streaked across a pallet of lighter gray. Looking at the landscape I am unsure why this change. Is it the downward slope? Is it because the trees are further back from the easement? I have little time to speculate, because the road’s uninhabited crook lying just ahead is my pet’s favorite sector of the journey and her impatience, while not actually felt, is strongly sensed. Here she is free to do her thing for a few brief moments and she has this spot memorized. Every nuance of fragrance is her huckleberry. I let her have her head while I explore with my eyes the jumbled berm of rocks marking the end of neighborhood traffic.

With the snuffling, snorting, rooting and squatting, now out of the way, Yeller and I take the curve of the cul-de-sac, following its deepest outline to the opposite side. This is not a thing of necessity, for we could shorten our way by simply bisecting the road. That would be thriftier. But I established this less direct route when Yeller was but a puppy that she might profit of its discipline, and I of the marginally greater distance. We act by rote, receiving a peculiar comfort from its sameness and familiarity.

And so we must traverse our same path, only in reverse, on the opposite side, and uphill. The sun is in my eyes, my thigh muscles are straining and Yeller doesn’t want to heel. It would be easy to give in and allow her to crane me up the incline, but given the proverbial inch to mile ratio she favors – give her one and she will take the other – I hold out. It is a long, shallow grade we must climb, noticed more keenly now that we must work for our dinner.At last we reach the apex and I see that going down I must have missed this one small oak I now recognize as the homeliest tree on the block. It has least coloration, fewest leaves, and provides but scanty shade. In real life its skinny fingers with their arthritic joints approach the macabre. But in shadow form its’ limbs become a thing of beauty, a delicate tracery in winter’s smoky hues. Here on the pavement harsh outlines of limb and branch are gently blurred. In mind’s eye I see the artist, hunched over and intent upon his drawing. He experiments, turning the sharpened point of his pencil to the side for shading and a muted effect; and lacy filigree comes to life where sun shines through the thin branches.

There is a parallel here, nudging me forward. Bloated on our own sap we block all light; the shadow we cast becomes monochromatic, lacking interest. Inevitably though time, wind, weather, and the gardener will do their work, as on the shrub, so on us… if we will but lend our branches to their expertise. As the tree in winter, we must willingly let go our leaves and husks of self-glory so that the true brilliance of the artist at work may be manifest. It is but then that light can shine, not just upon us but through us, creating patterns of exquisite beauty not seen before, and whereby some passing patron of the arts, hoping for more than mere creature comfort, may be nourished.

Soon a sharp bend in the road will appear and I am hoping new umbrellas to contemplate. But instead a stretch of deep shade comes into view where winter’s late morning light is still almost entirely obstructed by a jungle made of tall oaks, squat cedars, and copses of scruffy chaparral. We have turned a corner and it is just as well there is not much in the way of pattern to report, for Contretemps Hill is not far ahead. After we pass the two barking dogs I have carefully schooled Yeller to ignore; after the house with the untidy yard; and after the reclusive man and his bashful wife, we shall begin our scaling of the precipice. But this segment of the journey I shall allow to remain as arcane as it appears - in the shadows. It is far too horrid a thing to recount.

Teardrops of light sprinkled here and there lengthen to become weeping streams of umber washing down a charcoal face. I liken them to tears squeezed from the press of the rack, or perhaps to my own sweated brow. We made the grade so to speak, though just, and the downhill run and are now trekking along fairly even ground, which in turn will give way to an almost indiscernible, long, slow incline. Were it not for the fact that we are nearing the end of our hike and breathing hard, it would be a good stretch for more scientific research on the attributes, ambiguities, and seeming unreasonableness of shadows.

But my imagination is paling in concert with my endurance. We enter into a long vale of sunshine cut at intervals by abbreviated shadow: a low mountain-ridge silhouette from a far horizon, large trees of various ancestries, but back a pace from the road. My pet's slowed but still rhythmic stride and my own more leaden steps take us by way of the feathered arch once more; but the influence of the cedar has receded from its former stature. Like us it is near the end of itself as regards shadows – or the exploration thereof. The sun’s rays strike the velvet fronds of the evergreen less obliquely now and will progressively burn off their declining shadow until it well nigh disappears. Then trees will be once more only trees, shade only shade – and Yeller and I almost home.