I read today that a flock of seagulls was once trapped in the eye of a hurricane.
The birds had sought refuge in the false calm of fair skies, but didn’t realize they
now flew through a tunnel of destruction, all ways out blocked by certain devastation.
Birds that sense plummeting pressure from an oncoming storm either fly aloft
on waves of wind or hunker down, feet gripped onto lower branches or huddled
together in brush. They risk being blown off course and face the errant bolt
of lavender lightening from the differential of opposing forces sparking a fire.
The winds, which are now stirring, reveal the trees’ lonely bones as perches;
and harbors of strength among the lowest rungs; yet also invites us to rise.
No, hope is not a destination, but instead a way of entering into dialogue
with possibility like a leaf trembled and blown finds its way to the ground.
Small things sometimes call us home, like the two birds I saw
circling the hay field this morning on my way back from
farm chores. Their shrill vibrating whistle, a half warning, half invitation
stunned me awake from a deep dream—even though
I should have been sufficiently awake from an hour of shoveling
manure. Why would two seagulls have come so far inland? I wondered,
as I mentally calculate whether the recent hurricane
or an errant trash heap had thrown the birds off course.
Then I saw the unmistakable thick body and spiraling flight of
predators: a grey morning sky backlit like a metallic robe
about to hit the ground in full favor of nakedness, no pretense.
The birds were not seagulls, but red-tailed hawks.
I hadn’t noticed that our free-range hens were already
scattered outside like balls on a pool table hit particularly well
by a skilled opening break. The roosters were on high alert and
had surrounded the hens, several of which were on a
chaotic sprint towards the low lying platform my father had built
as a roost, but we now used for a refuge and cover outside
for moments just like this, for times when hawks were double-
or triple-teaming the hens. The hawks have lost interest
in the hens, for now. But suddenly the hayfield has come alive,
shaking in the wind with vulnerability. A small toad or mole: now the sole subject
of the hawks’intention. I start to draw closer, but my boots on the newly paved road
are too loud. The trite intrusion draws my attention to a small rivulet of
water from last night’s rain along the side and I think just how insufficient
a surface asphalt is, as rain can no longer follow a true path to the sea
and how so often our way is bridled by obstacles of our own making. The sun,
still hidden beneath a grey cloud cover, shimmers as if stretched
across our skies in shredded ribbons. So I take off my
muck boots and wait, while the heavy strain against the birds’ wings
appears to hold them aloft and the hawks soar ever freer
in the stark fact that existence is connected to these moments.
Every single evening
in her short life
the garden spider spins
a web of concentric
circles. Each anchored
to five
or so holdfasts,
simple spokes
on a wheel,
against which everything hinges.
Around and around she goes,
adding to her work,
bridging the distance from
one holdfast
to another, length by length,
adding depth
and perspective as she telescopes inward,
moving deftly to a center only
the edges can project, filling
in a spiral with detail.
Her strange and perfect offering
completes itself in zigs and zags like a zipper
on a fine golden purse to safely carry expected coin.
By morning the light and dew
create a hall of mirrors,
drawing her prey down
now lit corridors,
the mirage of open
space an enticement to beyond,
but instead a dead end.
A goldfinch flies over the garden
on his way to a field where evening
primrose offers buttercups of nectar
and darts past the spider,
her work a magnificent lit
lamp tilted just so
he can avoid ruining her elaborate
composition. By evening, the spider
dines on her work, now studded
with the jewels of beatles
and papery moths, lying still
in silky sarcophagi.
The spider unwinds
her entire web, ingesting it within
in a feat of impressive completion,
only to begin
again spinning
come dark.
The Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia or “with a bright face” in Latin) goes by several other common names including the writing spider, corn spider, or McKinley spider. They are found in all 48 contiguous states usually in gardens or at the edges of open fields. We commonly see Garden Spiders on squash or tomato plants in the farm’s vegetable garden that abuts a hayfield.
My mother used to talk about the garden she and I would plant together
in her retirement, with imperfect peonies, roses, lily of the valley, and tall stands
of irises swaying in the breeze facing the western sky of the upper pasture,
where the sunset we watched nightly could mirror the pinks and plums
as if a reflection in a pond. She died of cancer before we could plant one bulb,
her own body piecemeal through surgeries, a fragment of her once gracefully
beautiful and perfect wholeness, now turning into tiny bells of light, bells that
grew closer
and closer together
until she herself turned into a pillar of light
like a stand of tall,
thin wheat rustling with seeds at sunrise
and kissed by a first frost.
II.
For years I would throw away broken pieces of pottery—bowls cupped
once by their creator’s calloused hands, dried in open window sills and
painted in colors that spoke of the sky or sand or night: a suggestion
of a whale’s tail on a handle, glazed with a swirl of sunlight,
like a holy stone in a riverbed that had received spring’s inundation
might reveal different shades of grey at dawn. I’d watch in horror
as a mug about to be filled with morning coffee slipped from my hand
onto a granite countertop and smashed into shards,
a few pieces still large enough to remind of the beauty
now lost.
Everywhere fragments,
reflecting
light now as chaos,
as disconnection, as if prayer
could be destined for a trash heap.
III.
The ground where the garden should stand is empty.
The patch of grass in its place speaks of what’s missing, as
if a tornado has left nothing but the suggestion of a denuded dream.
But I am slowly building a different garden with only white flowers
around the stump of a maple tree, that was felled by lightning
shortly after my mother left.
This garden is where our picnic table once held our entire family like a raft
under the largest of leafy canopies. I am also placing a path
through the garden with the broken remains of shards of pottery,
pieces that I now
keep when they shatter. I throw the fragments of art on the ground,
as if birdseed,
where they are scattered and rearranged in patterns that ask us
always to make new sense.
Over time the shards—which receive the blessings
of relentless snow and rain—
show us how sharp edges
were never meant to be permanent
What if I told you that there was a cheaper, faster, healthier, safer, less energy intensive, cleaner, and lower carbon footprint way to cook than using an electric or gas stovetop and range? You’d wonder why you never heard of it before, right?
Stephanie Cmar, Top Chef alumna and former chef at Stir of Barbara Lynch Gruppo, demonstrates induction cooking. Photo by Colleen Brannen.
I know I was stunned when recently attending an event put on jointly by Mother’s Out Front and HEET at my dear friend Claire Corcoran’s house to learn about induction cooking, an electromagnet method of cooking that has been around for a decade. My family had just months before bought a new cooktop, but even as long time greenies who have spent the past year buying two electric vehicle cars and converting our house to solar, we did not come across this option in our research. After learning more, I’d say induction cooking definitely meets the criteria for a best investment in sustainability.
Healthier Numerous studies have linked gas stoves in homes with increased asthma, bronchitis, and wheezing in children. Additionally, if you live in Massachusetts and cook with gas, there is better than 50% chance that you are using fracked gas, which contains health-threatening chemicals used in the fracking process. Pollutants involved in fracking have been linked to pediatric neurological issues, lower birth weights and increased asthma. So by taking a pass on fracked gas, you are keeping your own family from being exposed and are also helping the communities where fracking has had the greatest negative health and environmental impacts.
Cheaper, More Energy Efficient and Safer
When you turn on an induction burner, an electric current runs through the coil, generating a fluctuating magnetic field, but no heat on the burner itself. Then once you set an iron or stainless steel pan on the burner, the magnetic field induces many smaller electric currents in the pan’s metal, creating heat in the pan. Because there is no transfer of heat from the stove to the pan, 95% of every dollar you spend on energy goes right where you want it – in the pan! Gas delivers only 35% to the pan and traditional electric about 56%. Also, once the pan leaves the burner, the burner goes into standby mode, so no electricity is used in between periods of cooking or shifting pans.
Induction cooking is also faster, (2 to 4 minutes faster to bring a 6 quart pan of water to boil). While the speed isn’t life changing, the energy saved does aggregate over a year significantly.
So what do they cost? Currently, Consumer Reports recommends a Kenmore brand range that is $1,000. But you might consider a 2-burner counter top version for $100-200 to test out if induction might work for you. As consumers and commercial vendors discover the benefits of induction, the prices will no doubt come down.
If induction becomes the standard for cooking, the old adage of “touching a hot stove” will no longer make sense: an induction stove burner is only hot if there’s a pan on it. The potential for leaving a stove on is also lessened, which is an additional safety benefit over gas and electric.
Photo by Colleen Brannen.
Lower Carbon Footprint
Here in New England, many of our homes use natural gas.This gas is mostly methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Because a significant amount of that methane leaks into the atmosphere all along the system from where it’s produced to where it’s used, natural gas damages our climate more than coal. You can always green your electricity source, but you can’t green fossil fuel.
Induction stove tops and ranges are slowly becoming the norm in restaurants and professional kitchens, because of all of the benefits. Though it does take some adjustment to new cooking speeds and settings, it’s probably no more difficult to learn than transitioning from gas to electric or vice versa requires.
Cooking by the animated glow of a fire is deeply encoded in our mythology and DNA. I’m quite sure that’s why I have in the past preferred using gas over electric. But lessening our carbon footprint and energy usage can truly help us feel a different warmth inside: that of knowing we walk gently on our bountiful earth.
Salt from the Shaker Recommended Read about fracking:
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My grandmother darned socks.
A good farm wife, she knew
any tear could be mended,
the original wound transformed
into a caesura, a brief pause held by the conductor
to grab our attention, to show us meaning
that hovers uncomfortably in a void.
Or into a sharp, an intentional accident in service
to asserting a consciously uplifting melody.
Nana knew that darning took painstaking
skill, a recovery, of a pattern not usually
perceived by the untrained eye, but seen by those
disciplined enough to lean in and acknowledge the
asymmetry and contradiction of things once whole,
now splintered. That darning takes patience and faith,
word by word. That bridges built across an abyss need
to also be shored up, stitch by loving stitch, until they stand
no longer alone. That it takes a steadfast surrender
to duty and one another since every stitch rises
or falls entirely due to the number
of stitches interdependent with it.
That we must finally take responsibility
for the damage we have wrought and the scars we leave
by sitting and working under the brightest of lights.
Something tells me you could chart the path of a heart
the way a peacock raises flowers like too many moons.
I saw our peacock in full bloom today and noticed the eyes
in his feathers expanding like the universe; a quick shudder
of his plume suggesting no boundaries to his aspirations.
The light created a halo of iridescence shimmering, azure colors
in a constant flux across a visible spectrum. I am struck by how
assured we all are in these times, how quick to flash with knowledge
when stars overhead suggest uncharted territory and a call
to humility. Yes, even as assured beauty can feel like a reasonable answer
to a world of brutality and cynism, something in the peacock’s
showy brilliance suggests a seed of difficult truth unfolding. The risk
that what we love can all too soon and quickly be taken away, makes us pause
and shudder in answer with our own feathers. But perhaps questions unfurling
as Fibonacci have more worth than answers hung proudly like flags on a pole.
Laura Parker Roerden is the founding director of Ocean Matters and the former managing editor of Educators for Social Responsibility and New Designs for Youth Development. She serves on the boards of Women Working for Oceans (W20) and Earth, Ltd. and is a member of the Pleiades Network of Women.
