Winter Solstice, 2018

Each year sometime late in October running into November and on the occasion the sun actually shines, the Superior Northwoods luxuriates in long, low light. Though the hours to do it are short, seeing is made easy because there's so little left that obscures, not even the otherwise customary brilliance lent life by a sunny afternoon.

Night falls earlier by the day, morning comes later each night. Invariably the world ratchets down colder and darker. Yet on crisp clear nights, it squeezes stars from the sky like at no other time of year.

Ancient people brought intuitive understanding of the natural world to bear upon stone, and thereafter each winter the stones told them when tidal seasons again turned toward the light. As inevitable as the dark, was the light. Provided one somehow managed to hang tight until fecund spring, lesson learned.

For most of us along the northern tier the lights are on and inside, warm air circulates. Indifferent to our many conveniences, the shortest day of any year still signals the same celestial turning ancient peoples once took for a sure sign of gods. 

Today, those folk living in the northwoods, on the prairie or the plains currently gauging their dwindling propane supplies while burning right through the woodpile still mark the day. As does every other soul with at least one eye keen to the real world. By changing faster than we can keep up with, that has us collectively riding the receding edge of human glory.

The great tide of seasons flows forth. That's marked for certain in the sky. This celestial sign occurs with or without any circle of stones to see it through. It happens just the same, whether or not your view is obscured.

So tomorrow about this time when the Earth reliably shifts, should your evening be clear and crisp, go out and take notice beneath the Little Spirit Moon accompanied by glittering winter stars. That moon and those stars remember what you don't.

Then maybe dance to what was, what is and what looks to be pretty soon again.

The best of this season to us all.

The Witch of November

©PhilKuceraPhoto

Many thanks to my dear friend Phil. As he chases angry seas, I needn't.

*

Be assured, we've tempted Lake Superior since first we arrived on the basin.

Yeah, it's likely the earliest peoples walked in. But shortly thereafter they went in, it's too long and arduous a way around. The relationship's been fraught ever since.

Visit the cold, deep waters of the big lake through enough seasons and you'll see her rage. Furies grip the wind and that whips the sea, which rises mighty against a sky turned every shade of roiled blue, slate grey and black. The ground trembles beneath you, when the lake hurls itself against the shore.

Forty-three years ago today, the Witch of November claimed the Edmund Fitzgerald and the 29 souls that rode her to Superior's bottom. The Fitz was no small boat. Longer than any puny football field. Bigger than the Great Republic pictured below.

Men stand small, beside that.

What's made by humans often dwarfs them. Put men in a boat that size, stuff the boat with 8,000 tons of shifting ore pellets and set it all out on the middle of Superior in a storm, then the Promethean feat of ingenuity and engineering that floats the lot of it might suddenly be rendered woeful insufficient. The men themselves, infinitesimal.

The sea neither notices nor cares.

Quickly! Quickly!

The waves rise up again. The distant view draws close,

Land ho, I call!

                                                                               - Goethe

The Edmund Fitzgerald suffered catastrophic failure during a gale somewhere out there, in open water. Well beyond anything like safe harbor.

At nearly 200 feet longer than the water there is deep, its bow might've crashed into the bottom at the same time the all but inverted stern still perched high above the waves. As the Mighty Fitz porpoised down and the tons of taconite inside her rolled, many if not all of the men inside her too, saw Death coming for them.

Until the moment the great ship broke under all that strain then in two ragged halves sank swiftly to the bottom and was still. Above, the sea raged on indifferent.

No S.O.S. was sent. Maybe, there wasn't the time. Regardless, those terrible moments ran long, for the men.

Don't think the Edmund Fitzgerald is a quiet, hallowed grave site. We've picked over its bones. Gone trophy hunting, for treasure and for knowledge. That's what we do. Ask most any Native American or any Egyptian about that, next time you see one.

Every November I think of the Fitz and its men. Once, it was the biggest boat on the lake. Today, it's the biggest boat on the bottom of it. Ever may that be so.

My own intimate relationship with Superior has, as of this writing, never turned terribly fraught. I've relished her when peaceful and serene. Have hunkered against the gale in awe when green water from the belly of the lake broke over the so-called breakwall like it wasn't there and from the heavens lightning flashed then the deep wave shattered upon unbroken wilderness and dissipated into tiny shards of ice. All ways, I love Superior.

I think of the Edmund Fitzgerald and the men and the stillness at the bottom of frigid Superior and trust that for them down there, the sea is forever calm.

Godspeed, all sailors.

Our House Divided Still Stands

For now.

It's a weather-worn, creaky assed structure left in the middle of the stinkin' wilderness, leaning upon a determinedly undermined foundation and when the winter wind blows, it's godawful cold.

But it's everything we've got.

American Gothic - along the Underwood Grade

So by all means take a deep, reflective breath.

Last of the Season - 11.07.2018

Then get back the hell back to work. Perpetual maintenance is required, lest the house fails.

Thought you'd earned at least one day off, eh? Well, welcome to the 21st Century and good luck with that. There's no union fighting for your collective benefit, any more.

To catch any kind of a break you'll just have to keep agitating, agitating, agitating.

That's the American Way.

#vote

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

                                                   -H.L. Mencken

Or, if you prefer…

The dogmas of the…past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

                                            - A. Lincoln

It's on you to choose.

Neither ennui nor cynicism nor any excuse whatsoever for inaction will mitigate your responsibility as a human being, no less as an American citizen. Moral vanity doesn't cut it. You can't escape the future except by dying. In the interim, history comes for you.

So vote like it's the 21st century and you know it.

Vote to embrace the future, not relitigate the past.

Vote to Agitate. Agitate. Agitate. Because the fugitive slave Frederick Douglass learned the hard way how to maintain liberty's architecture, and he wasn't wrong.

What's true then is true now. Short of rebellion, there's the vote.

This great American experiment depends on we the people collectively imposing our individual will upon government, at least every two years. When we don't, we've chosen to give the future over to demagogues and schemers. Fearmongers, extremists and the multitude of liars always eager to define and determine for us, who we are.

We already know how that story turns out...

Vote to empower and extend a more perfect union, not to gnaw over its 20th Century bones.

Fellow citizens, we can not escape history, Mr. Lincoln said.

They didn't. You can't. Your children won't.

So vote, dammit. It's the least you can do.

#vote

#vote2018   #2018midterms  #itsmyvote   #election2018   #turnout

Superior Autumn, in the Abstract

Tell me this isn't a love story:

The patterns of nature fascinate me. They exist beyond conventional understanding. Partly, that's what drives me to wilderness. Often, there is but to look, then marvel. Through the years, I'd always spare a few frames to reflect that.

In the soft light of autumn, the Superior Basin's core character is revealed.

Or rendered obscure.

Occasionally, golden light bathes the place and in a quiet forest, history speaks.

In long low light, the world can be grotesque and wondrous at the same time.

You might discover a mountain range.

Or maybe, galaxies of stars.

Wilderness shed of its fine summer dress and not yet veiled by snow reminds us that the living universe of coherent, productive chaos doesn't care what we make of it.

And that often, what's seen at first glance only deceives.

Image Essay -- Late Bloomers

This year, autumn doesn't know whether it's coming or going.

North on the Gogebic Range, fall color is about peaked. Presently it's 42°F, with rain, fog and mist accompanied by a breeze from the northeast. You can bet the clouds have fallen from the sky and are kissing the Bessemer bluffs into hazy submission.

Meanwhile, the prairie basks in summertime temperatures and humidity, thrown from the south on a stiff breeze. Thunderstorms threaten.

Last week, the weather was typical of November. Yesterday and today, it's July again. They say we're due more November, sometime tomorrow night.

If it'll ever be October, I can't guess. Maybe this year we'll just skip it. At least then I'll not be another year older.

I thought to take the canoe out but decided during the dark of this morning I'd rather chase lean, hungry fish next April in the chill and damp than fight the sun, heat and wind on this weird autumn day. One shouldn't put off time on the water I know, but occasionally it's best to just go with the odds. Rest assured, fish know how late the year is.

Still, encouraged by spates of unseasonably warm days, on our little patch of prairie life hangs tough.

At an easy glance it might even be mistaken for spring. The sort of thing one looks forward to, when praying to survive the shank of a long winter.

But the hard truth is, life's just offering a pretty little sigh while it still can, while otherwise giving up the ghost. The season's first frost warnings are already posted.

Being something of a late bloomer myself, I get it.

Notes From the Field -- Transitions

Listen close. You can hear the difference.

All summer, a breeze through the trees sings primarily of life. Sometimes a sudden freshening warns of impending storm. Especially come evening, wind and trees and clear nights together might whisper of wonder and mystery. You can hear it, provided you're awake.

These last couple weeks as the light's fallen low, that same chorus through those same trees is turned brittle. Not yet cold, exactly. Little warmth left, either. Like millions of tiny skeletons, shrugging dry skin from agitated bones.

The time for passing is at hand, they cry.

In olden days (think 40 years ago), long about the third week of September every year we'd give ourselves over to the wilderness. That was the spot on the calendar when autumn's full, flagrant display most reliably graced the Gogebic Range, our gateway to the great wilderness beyond.

Some years the timing was better than others as years and timing both go, but more often than not the 3rd week in September proved pretty much spot on. By and large, we received of our indulgence what we'd asked. Even when we couldn't recognize until after the fact what that was.

Occasionally, the razor's edge between risk/reward wore mighty thin.

Typically, the weather during this annual endurance test was mostly crappy. That's a meteorological term, you could look it up.

Not infrequently, the raw edge of winter descended upon the Range while we were there. One morning Heather & I awoke to the sagging sides a darkened tent. Outside, four inches of heavy wet snow blanketed the forest.

A whole stinkin' season turned on us, while we slept.

The next year we sheltered in one of North Face's then radically inventive four season domes. That tent cost more than the car I drove, but it buffered us against the wildest caprice of late September in the northwoods. Not having to flee in the face of that would've been cheap at twice the price.

We meant to persevere against whatever autumn threw at us.

To understand that in the real world there're only two times of every day that matter a damn - light & dark. Of seasons just warm or cold, with a bit of mixed blessing between each. We meant to take life as it came, not try and invent it.

At least for a while. Then return home to relative safe harbor knowing we'd done that, however briefly. Knowing it was in us, to do.

So much the better, those years when we happened to meet the autumnal equinox head on in a place where that really counts.

Impossibly young, awash in the vast wilderness that flowed steadily from summer into winter and purposefully positioned on the cusp, pagan belief came easy. If shy wood sprites, powerful fairies and other such do exist, tell me they don't live here: 

If not, then they should.

These days, full raging autumn at the point of dying typically comes to the Gogebic Range sometime in October. Make of that change over the years what you will, there it is. A mere ten days ago, everything was still mostly green.

The steadily sinking sun blazed hot on the Superior Basin for days and a south wind blew a breath of life back into the woods. One afternoon I swam in the big lake as if it were high summer. The water was at least as warm as it'd been this past July.

Thinking it unproductively bland, I booked out early. Most of these images are from my back catalog of many Septembers. It's a large catalog.

*

Two days ago, the prairie remained hot & muggy. Broke the all time record for heat on that date. The old record was set last year. Make of that what you will, there it is. Records aren't what they used to be neither, for sure.

Passing Monarchs plied the remains of our garden. Most of the bees were gone. Sparrows savaged seed of the oregano that recently raised great wasps. Goldfinches tore at those sunflowers the squirrels can't reach. With night, katydids called. Crickets chirped.

Yesterday brought sudden reversal of fortune. Everything runs downhill now. That'll go faster by the day, until only open water lies ahead.

Since I left, to the Superior Basin has come cold rain, bitter wind and mountainous high seas. The season's first frost warnings are up for tonight, autumn marking the transition from then to now with frigid fingers.

On a quiet evening just prior to the usual week of September, after coming off the beach I sat awhile to savor lingering summer. Just me, the folk in that boat out there and the wheeling gulls. I thought this trip I'd not gotten exactly what I'd asked for, but was content with what I'd been given all the same.

In the gloaming I met a small brown snake in no hurry to yield the path that even after sunset held on tight to the heat of day. That snake moved only when I did, otherwise we might've stood there like that all night. I reminded the little fellow to be wary of owls. The snake took haven in the tall grass.

This year, my northwoods adventure was sunshine and unseasonable warmth carried on a fresh southerly breeze. That filled my lungs with promise for to better get through a season of short days and long nights. One friend's personal loss reminded me no season's entirely bereft of that save perhaps the most golden. My heart goes out to her.

In any event, what I needed most was the company of my very best Superior friends. By jumping the annual gun just a week, my timing was pretty much spot on as regards that.

Let the world turn as it will, I say.