A
remarkable night stargazing by Emerald Lake in the high Sierras. I have to
remind myself and be grateful that I do indeed get to do this all Summer; it’s
not just a little two-day getaway. Why we wait to take these journeys when we
have the privilege to do so baffles
me more each day. So many of our brothers and sisters will never have the
chance. With this in mind, I travel, observe and learn from these places.
Tonight, I am staring at the heavens under an absolutely radiant night sky high
in the mountains… Ursa Major. North Star. Ursa Minor. Draco. Corona Borealis.
Bootes. I suppose there is some ancient instinct in us to simply gaze into the
night sky and ponder things. This was perhaps the best night to date that I
have observed the estrellas. It is
easy to do at this altitude with such brilliant celestial light! I can only
hope for many more such alpine nights.
The next morning we awoke early to scamper around the lake towards some little
falls on the other side to have a quick breakfast before heading back down into
the “real world”. A planned 15-minute hike became 45 minutes became an hour. As
we walked we began to notice many of the hundreds of tiny high country flowers
that John Muir and so many others have described in great detail. Thankfully my
compañero has quite a background in
botany and was able to ID many of them. Columbine. Indian Paintbrush. Shooting
Star. Penstemen. Many more with names I do not yet know. There were these
marvelous little plants found in large patches along rock edges and cracks,
with rounded greenish/purple leaves, some with intense orange, yellow and red
miniature flowers shooting up from the middle of the patch. The hills came
alive with the tiny detail of all these exceptional little beings. We crossed a
little meadow of sorts while scrambling along the rocks, and looking back up
the hill it was just awash in color. Breathtaking, really. But from a distance
one does not see any of this. It appears as if these rocks are plain white,
barren, lifeless… until you get up real close and start to observe the tiny
details that surround you.
The metaphor is obvious. You have to get up close, slow down, observe and
appreciate the small details of the things around you. This is the beauty and
the profound lesson of botany. Something I’m just beginning to understand. You
must move slowly, observing everything in great detail, stopping as often as
necessary to look into the heart of things and see what is truly there. What
you will discover may change the way you see most everything you look at. Back
in the latest pit stop of my journey – New York City – it’s the difference
between running in a mad rush out of your apartment to catch the subway to get
to a job you hate with people you don’t even know vs. never doing that. Ever.
Instead, it’s a slow jaunt through Prospect Park, observing maple and oak trees
as they blossom. Studying the details of their bark and their leaves. Noting
the differences between Red and Sugar Maples; between White and Pin Oaks.
Since I have started my amateur botanizing I
have found myself finally starting to learn how to slow down. Finally I stop
running past things that deserve my attention, and start to look at them in awe
of their details, to be amazed, and to try to do most everything in this
manner. I still have very much to learn. But imagine if we all tried to live
our lives with this sort of deliberate appreciation for the things and the
people around us!
We “tree-huggers” are not just yapping about
the trees, really.
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