Running into a Stranger from a Missed Exit - Deception, Biodiversity, and the Sexiest Flower Around

~I’d rather have honest eyes, but being full of cunning and guise is what it takes to keep certain other organisms alive. 

After three and a half long, draining, and super informative and inspirational workshops and talks with great folks at the Virginia State Parks Ranger Academy: 2013 Spring Interpretive Workshop, it was time to head back home and prepare for one of my last days of teaching high school for the 2012-2013 school year.

Part of the Soar Program, including this one-winged eagle

I was reflecting on some of the sessions and wise words from Interpreters and Educators, cruising up I-81, music playing, arm out the window, and before I knew it I MISSED my 118 Exit for Blacksburg. By the time realization occurred, it was too late.

Brain mushed from data-overload, being underslept and drained, my mind jerked about momentarily, but sometimes, rather than curse your situation (knowing it is miles before a turn around) I try to view it as a blessing in disguise. Call it weak justification for inattentiveness, call it a chance. I once witnessed one of the biggest shooting stars of my life because of a wrong turn.

Moaning at that moment of ‘wasted time’ in disdain, I tried to look for a bright side. I’d seen over 20 wildflowers over the past 2 days in the rich mountains of Hungry Mother State Park, but there was one member of our Appalachian community I have yet to be graced by thus far this year. The timing seemed appropriate so I made a detour. And there might just be a few tasty morels left.

Wild Geranium in Hungry Mother State Park

Wild Iris along a stream in Hungry Mother State Park

An unusually early rhododendron (outlier)

Nope, no morels, they have passed their fruiting stage here, but my original hope came true, in a most graceful and elegant way.

Morel from earlier in season

And now I sit in the woods, a brook rolling by, a thrush singing in his smooth and fluid way, ferns waving in fractal fancy, and beside me, one of the rarest gems inside the biodiverse living bounty of our Appalachian mountains, the yellow lady slipper. Sometimes missing your turn winds up restoring your mind and spirit. The world is funny and serendipitous like that sometimes. 

The yellow lady slipper, member of the orchid family, shape is exquisitely elegant, demanding respect and awe from anyone who adorns flowers, and getting some from even those who don’t. Twisted sepals more pronounced in this rarer breed compared to the pink lady slipper, it is a special plant indeed.

Yellow Lady Slipper

Pink Lady Slipper from elsewhere for comparison

God and Mother Nature felt particularly sexy when the lady slippers were made. I sit in the middle of three, awestruck, unable to withhold a grin. I wonder if an insect will fall for her age old trick, a trap with no reward, forced to deposit and brush against pollen through the only escape route. Then another flower has to be lucky enough to tempt and fool an insect again. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, and pollinate a living rarity.

Spirals of serene 

Nectar for pollination is an almost ageless trade, a simple and fine example of mutualism where both partners benefit for and from their interaction. Pollination, many a person’s first real experience of different organisms being dependent on one another in nature, that simple bee or butterfly landing on a flower.

But certain plants do survive by trickery as well, in a variety of shapes and forms. Some orchids fall in this category. And if the trick isn’t fooling enough, that plant may enter the realm of genetic weakness from purely vegetative reproduction, and some fall even further into extinction. It’s survival of the fittest at its simplest. Deception comes with a price and risk.

Imprisoned insect - click picture for larger image

That nice bright yellow, a fragrance, and a landing platform all attract bees and other insects. But no nectar is there in return for the uncertain chance of pollination. One member isn’t holding up their part of the beneficial bargain. Hairs and the different shape of their flower force most insects out exactly where the flower wants. Translucent spots guide imprisoned insects. Nature does have her deceptive side now and again, keeping others and us on our toes.

Unsustainable collection and habitat loss have disastrous effects on this very curvaceous and attractive flower. People try to transplant the flowers to their landscapes, but without proper mycorrhizal fungus (mutualism again) common to their habitat’s soil, attempts are often in vain and the flowers die, no longer a perennial but compost instead.

The roots take year to develop, undergoing an intense confluence and union with their fungal partners before being a seedling; another reason landscape germination is difficult. It is still much longer, sometimes 5 – 10 additional years, before some flower in nature! It is a fragile gem of Appalachia, and something to cherish when one is lucky enough to be in the company of.

Interestingly enough they have always been used medicinally, but most herbalists and naturalists, including myself, warn against picking and using them any longer because population numbers are so painfully low. I am unsure if a doe or a greedy person clipped one of these few around me. My hope is that it was a deer.

The bloodroot, toothwort, and trillium around me have come and gone, leaves leftover like subtle whispers of their recently colorful and seeking selves. The lady slippers are patient, seeming to wait politely for the other flowers to bloom and disappear before bursting with color and temptation. Perhaps it is a strategy for survival. Perhaps every action is. 

in the hush of Nature and God

Sanguine serenity

and iridescent opulence

we give thanks to

this organic, evolving tilt and sway

giving change and season and never ceasing brevity

fettered teetering is unsettling

Gve us this stillness of being

as birds enter clouds

and leaves reenter the ground

we fly in between these dreams

as we all settle in the moment

and smiles paint our face in the hush. 

A wave of trilliums

I rode a wave of trilliums

dappled pink and white on

a million shades of green

upon waves and waves of Appalachian landscape

etched like fractal dreams

Blooming biodiversity aches of budding thought

swinging dogwood blossoms

sweet to the tongue redbud flowers

dangling columbines, unfurling ferns, crumpled cohosh

and clear cascading waters

I rode a wave of trilliums

to an old stand of tulip poplars

hiding below a thick network

of mycelium and bacteria and the

synergistic chemistry of soil and Life

showy orchis sings it is time

as fruiting bodies of cerebral bulbous folds 

explode through thirsty dirt

miracles of a different kind

so I am frying morels and poor man’s pepper

with a dash of ramps for supper

I rode a wave of trilliums

into a small piece of heaven

into the resurgence of Spring

Nourishment for my body

And more importantly my soul

And I am all the stronger for it

a step closer to our fragile and wondrous world.

Wintry sounds of Spring's song

Snowflakes dance like ash saunter and swirl
and cardinals march to the
Drum of winter
Two males, perhaps brothers, sing and take 
their commands
A female observes 
Making mental notes on which
seems the wiser
They still have time to
prove their worth
She is plump
in this wintry scene
multi-functional feathers poofed out
in the original air trapping downy coat
Orange beak
and red streaks on white
speaks of
Spring’s song
In due time
And with her
head tilted just so
About 23 degrees
She picks out a spot
Where sticks and fir
will become a family home.

Growing Pains

Growing Pains

I can feel the world growing

I can feel the moon moving

Slowly away

I can hear the earth singing

In birdsong and stretch marked epochs

I can see the sky changing (I don’t need to see the newest scientific graph)

The clouds just don’t look the same

I can taste water and know

Mercury dreams swim in fits

Everyday I lose hope and regain compassion

Think we are doomed and then again see a glimmer and hope we shall save

This extension of God manifested that enlivens our world

That is our world

There’s a world of difference between dominion and domination

I can’t see the ocean for the phytoplankton filled drops of sunlight conversion

I can’t see the trees for the forest they look like giant

Churning organic hospitals

I mean life-support systems

Why isn’t ecosystem value a part of civics?

And I’m watching us pull out the wires and plugs

I hear the silly words of a cautious mother saying

‘wait, you might need that piece…’

under the chatter of children called Progress tossing whatever isn’t pretty aside

we are making our own invention and instructions are optional

history books like possibilities, not recycled intuition

I believe in free will

As much as fate

I believe hard work is my favorite spice

And understanding is the spice of life

Everyone should put their hands in the dirt

And rip produce from the ground and stick it straight in their mouth

I feel us becoming ever so digital like mental engineering

You look so much better under moonlight than in pixels

I hear voices of clarity cluttered into waves of messages and likes

Life has the type of beauty that moves

Be still child, be still

Your itchy feet will subside, we have medicine for that

Dreams and delusions of creativity, we can help with that too

Soon you’ll be just like the rest

Soon we’ll teach the leftover savage right out of you

Your longings will pass

Soon you will see

Everything is exactly as it should be

Yes, this is the road you have been walking to

Are you ready to grow up?

For the sake of something fleeting

I hope not.

Dreaming tree take two

I've been thinking about dreaming trees as of late, and decided to write something about them.


Each moment born from thoughts dropped like pebbles in a pond.

One day a bird ate a piece of fruit
And with that meal the bird ingested many things
Like sunlight turned into sugar
Vitamin and color
And perhaps the most powerful of all
The bird ingested a seed
A hard package of potential
A temporal passenger
 With a wishful ticket of tomorrow
To an undisclosed location
A lifelong destination, if it was one of the lucky ones

The bird flew with vigor
Call it a boost
A sugar rush
Perhaps even enjoyment
Of a sweet aftertaste on the tongue

Lofting upon a branch
Where it watched ants march in search
Of apple cores and crumbs
The seed was passed
Splatting upon the ground
With a creamy surrounding
Sure enough to make a lip curl in disgust
And a soil microbe smile in an opportunistic rush
Of fine dining

Time passes and change which endureth forever
Flows

Windstorm of seemingly angry fervor
Shoves over those weak and hollow
Snapping limbs and speckling eyes with dust
Or is it tough love just brushing up
Little invisible cyclones in corners only revealed by wrappers and leaves
A little pushy until things eventually settle
And creaky trunks rock like slowing tunes
Sunshine greets new ground and feet
When trees fall
water gets redistributed differently
and sometimes a patient seed with just what it needs
reaches up through thirsty dirt to kiss the sky
and then dig in

These infants
Saplings suckling sunlight
From time to time become a dreaming tree
That towers over a domain
And pulls not only wildlife but people
To some magnetic cohesion of grace and shade
Centurion providers
The dreaming tree becomes
A part of our life
It becomes a marker on our paths and maps of our story
The dreaming tree speaks
In profound abundance and atavistic simplicity
We thank the dreaming tree
We all have one somewhere in our childhood or future
We thank the dreaming tree It tells stories of family, love, and growth
They let us dream of something more
We thank the dreaming tree
Let us remember to also thank the bird.

Never mind them Woods (a poem for the Stadium Woods debate)

Info about the current debate over Stadium Woods adjacent to Lane Stadium on Virginia Tech campus and a proposed indoor sports facility can be found @ Save Stadium Woods.




The gist of this issue is the proposed construction of a sports facility and the potential for it to be constructed by removing a chunk of rare old woods next to Lane stadium. I think/hope the Stadium Woods will be preserved because it should be, but especially after the amount of attention and support it has garnered and the feasibility of building at an alternative site. But like they say, you never know, and you sure can't count your chickens before they hatch.

This is a satirical conversation between a group of people on the subject of Stadium Woods, the new athletics facility, and the decision making process.

Never mind them Woods

"No one is opposed to the facility and athletics makes a strong case for its need. However, most are opposed to placing it in rare, 300-year-old Stadium Woods." ~ a wise man

The Virginia Tech Master Plan says Stadium Woods is part of a
no-build zone, an
“Environmental and Cultural Greenway”
But football is different, right?
I mean we can bend the rules this once
It would be the first time, right Weaver?
We just need to pass the pigskin
in January and more importantly,
flaunt this facility to could be recruits
This could really make or break us

The quintessential question is
Must it be in this one spot?
No where else will do
Never mind cultural landmarks for future generations
Never mind alternative sites
We're keeping up with the Joneses
1 minute vs. 3 minutes of walking
equals less work
Never mind how we can understand this adds up
But not how other community values do too

Never mind some come here for other
reasons besides sports
Never mind many enjoy both sports and the forests
Never mind 5,700 signatures (and counting)
Never mind resolutions from
the Faculty Senate of Virginia Tech
the Arboretum Committee
the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Ecological Society of America
Support from the ROTC
Support from countless residents, children, mothers, grandfathers
Support from those who think a land-grant institution entails a land ethic
We're reaching out for more than tendrils of history

Never mind world class professors
with local funds of knowledge
Never mind accessibility
Never mind a commitment to environmental sustainability and stewardship
We are the masters of the universe
and we can pick and choose these things
We are wise, but thinking holistically is
more for ecosystems than expansion

Never mind the painfully thick irony
of this debate amidst Tree Campus USA recognition
Are we apart from nature or a part of nature?

Never mind them woods
there's plenty outside of town
Are we really arguing over a bunch of trees?
Never mind trees that were saplings before
our 1st U.S. President
Never mind 80 types of migrating birds
I mean really, birds
I want to see that 11-step button hook route perfected
what's a warbler ever done for me
they can find another pit stop

Never mind living classrooms
I hear there's an app for that
this
is
the face of progress

A living orange and maroon seasonal zeal of wonderment
Never mind old growth
We'll mitigate that with a few
new trees that are only 300
years younger
same species so no difference right?

"You take your hat off and give them
the respect they deserve."
No, we respect green of another kind
currency and turf
not hard-to-quantify value
of carbon sink and cleaning the air
Who cares about stormwater management, I thought
we were talking about football

Is this about impervious surfaces or impervious ears?
We can have world class forests and sports
Never mind the false dichotomy of tree huggers and football

Is smart growth an oxymoron?
Of course not, it's just not always
practical
Never mind integrated land-use management
we can teach it
but doing it, is quite different

Never mind extra costs to clean up Stroubles Creek, just a little stream that birthed this town

At least we can all agree
We are inventing the future
one way or another.