When growing up in England, I was a choirboy. The carols and music seemed to define the season. For me, the songs and images of the night and divinity were powerful. It was only after I left the city and experience dark, star-filled skies that the metaphor took on a reality.
This is the view Naomi and I had when we stopped near Little Hunters Cove in Acadia Nation Park one evening to eat the dinner we had packed. Click on the image for a larger view.
illumination (noun)1. lighting or light.
• (also illuminations) a display of lights on a building or other structure.
2. Physics: synonym for illuminance, the amount of luminous flux per unit area.
3. the art of illuminating a manuscript.
• an illuminated design in a manuscript.
4. clarification.
• spiritual or intellectual enlightenment.
Click on the image for a larger view.
Last Friday, when Naomi and I were going out, I took our dog Hikari outside to put her into the car. On the other side of the driveway, just inside the woods, I heard something walking. I thought it was the neighbor’s cat or dog. I walked to the edge of the woods to shoo it way. But in the twilight, I could not see anything, certainly not a domestic animal. I could hear where it was, but it was completely invisible. Continue reading
Click on image for a larger view.
Naomi and I took a trip to the Great Gulf Wilderness Area last weekend. Instead of standing on the head wall of the glacial cirque, we had entered the base of the valley. The Northern Forest is a unique ecosystem that stretches from the Adirondacks in northern New York, through Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and into the Canadian maritime provinces. At the base of Mt. Washington, the forest is mixed. The structure is complex: life carves out spaces in a three-dimensional world that stretches from the forest floor to the canopy. Even glacial erratics, large rocks dropped by retreating glaciers, become home to fern, moss, and trees. Click on the image for a larger view.
Yesterday was overcast and rainy. After dinner, I noticed the clouds breaking. I walked out to our field to watch the fading light of the day.
These events are fleeting. Clouds from the valley climbed the ridge and would obscure the view a few minutes after this image was taken—you can see those clouds just above the trees. And while we imagine the vivid color of the clouds would show some tenacity, that color can drain from the sky in seconds. Click on the image for a larger view.
The summer is coming to an end in Maine. The night is drawing in earlier. Where Naomi and I would return in the warm light of a setting sun, now we enter our driveway under the stars. The summer milky way floats above our forest giving us hope for a little more of the season, but also signaling its departure. It, like the sun, will set earlier and earlier. Click on the image for a larger view.
Click on the image for a larger view.
I am not sure it is because you are no longer keeping your head down in your winter coat, but summer skies seem to be so more dynamic in Maine. This time of year the weather can be unsettled with storms quickly forming and dissipating, some even before they can drop their harvest of rain. Click on the image for a larger view.
