A Deep River Year
October 1, 2014
It still felt like summer this weekend, but a sure sign of autumn was the Woolly Bear caterpillar (Pyrrharctia isabella) that we found inching its way through the grass. We stopped to take note of this bristly, bi-colored creature, so far removed from us in the network of living things. Yet we hoped it could tell us something about our future. The old lore has it that if the brown band in the middle of the caterpillar is wide, the coming winter will be mild. So we took some comfort, on this sunny September day, to believe that this little moth-to-be was offering good news for the cold months ahead.
The future is always a great unknown, and perhaps that is why even intelligent creatures like humans still consult groundhogs and caterpillars to give us a glimpse at what may lie ahead. Some of these old tales may have some truth in fact, at least when it comes to weather. I have always been told that a halo around a winter moon means that snow is coming. Yesterday's rosy sunrise cautioned "Red sky in morning, sailors take warning." And today it is raining. But some other prognosticating practices may just be wishful thinking. My Great Aunt Anna hid an almond in the Christmas rice pudding, promising that whomever found it in their bowl would have wealth or love in the new year. And my grandmother had the mysterious power to read the future in coffee grounds left in the bottom of a drained cup. In her visions, the future always held something good.
Of course the future is not always benevolent. Some would say that the universe is remarkably indifferent to our personal well-being. An article in Sunday's New York Times tried to put one person's life in the context of the universe. The writer surmised that after his own death, his remains would begin to be re-absorbed into the earth’s mold. Within 67 years of his death, the last person with a living memory of him would also die. Within 10,000 years ecological disaster and disease would wipe out most of the human population of earth, and in seven million years or so an asteroid would collide with our planet and send it spinning on a slow journey into the sun. Just over three billion years from now a tiny speck of what used to be a human person would become a falling star in another galaxy. Perhaps this inevitable doom is too dreary a prospect for a bright September day. Maybe that's why it cheers us up to imagine that a caterpillar can help us dream a soft winter and an early spring.
Woolly Bear
October 1, 2014
It still felt like summer this weekend, but a sure sign of autumn was the Woolly Bear caterpillar (Pyrrharctia isabella) that we found inching its way through the grass. We stopped to take note of this bristly, bi-colored creature, so far removed from us in the network of living things. Yet we hoped it could tell us something about our future. The old lore has it that if the brown band in the middle of the caterpillar is wide, the coming winter will be mild. So we took some comfort, on this sunny September day, to believe that this little moth-to-be was offering good news for the cold months ahead.
The future is always a great unknown, and perhaps that is why even intelligent creatures like humans still consult groundhogs and caterpillars to give us a glimpse at what may lie ahead. Some of these old tales may have some truth in fact, at least when it comes to weather. I have always been told that a halo around a winter moon means that snow is coming. Yesterday's rosy sunrise cautioned "Red sky in morning, sailors take warning." And today it is raining. But some other prognosticating practices may just be wishful thinking. My Great Aunt Anna hid an almond in the Christmas rice pudding, promising that whomever found it in their bowl would have wealth or love in the new year. And my grandmother had the mysterious power to read the future in coffee grounds left in the bottom of a drained cup. In her visions, the future always held something good.
Of course the future is not always benevolent. Some would say that the universe is remarkably indifferent to our personal well-being. An article in Sunday's New York Times tried to put one person's life in the context of the universe. The writer surmised that after his own death, his remains would begin to be re-absorbed into the earth’s mold. Within 67 years of his death, the last person with a living memory of him would also die. Within 10,000 years ecological disaster and disease would wipe out most of the human population of earth, and in seven million years or so an asteroid would collide with our planet and send it spinning on a slow journey into the sun. Just over three billion years from now a tiny speck of what used to be a human person would become a falling star in another galaxy. Perhaps this inevitable doom is too dreary a prospect for a bright September day. Maybe that's why it cheers us up to imagine that a caterpillar can help us dream a soft winter and an early spring.
Woolly Bear
You travel a journey in the world
by inches,
crawling toward winter
with a promise you can not know.
We will die, both of us, soon enough,
and autumns will come and go
as sure as the geese will fly.
But for this little moment
of sun and splendor,
I would believe your sweet forecast
that winter will be kind and soft,
and that spring will come soon,
and that like you, little Isabella,
I will one day take wing and fly,
or live some hidden dream
beyond my present sight.
We creep together through this green season
bearing an assurance--
or at least a wish--
that though cold days may come,
we shall all be well.
--Timothy Haut, October 1, 2014
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