Let Nature Blow Your Mind

 

Cataract Creek, Mt. Tamalpais

I lived next to my neighbor, Jake, for a couple of decades before I found out he's been writing Nature News all this time. Sometimes we relate as superficially to people as we do to a photograph, even though it's possible to have a deeper experience of either one. What I allude to in my Photographer's Statement is that an image can be a link to the deeper experience of being in the presence of nature itself. But only if you let it. And only if you have previously had a deeper experience to relate it to. 

An article about "plant blindness" that Jake mentioned in a recent newsletter put me on a tangent regarding other things we are blind to. The most important of these in my own life was being thrust out of the blindness of taking things for granted, of accepting superficial, received knowledge as being a true and adequate guide to the unfathomable intricacies of life. Sometimes all it takes to blow our minds is a little scratch beneath the surface of what we think we know. 

Over the years I've found that Nature is always ready to blow my mind. By directing my attention to the unfathomable intricacy of the natural world, and of life itself, in this present moment, the illusion of a hum-drum world of ordinariness vanishes and is replaced by an experience that some call ultimate reality and others call God. 

It's probably the best antidepressant of all. Check out this article from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, called Experiences of "Ultimate Reality" or "God" Confer Lasting Benefits to Mental Health: "About 75 percent of respondents in both the non-drug and psychedelics groups rated their 'God encounter' experience as among the most meaningful and spiritually significant in their lifetime, and both groups attributed to it positive changes in life satisfaction, purpose and meaning."

I was surprised to see the subject brought up in a recent article in, of all places, the staid New York Times, where David Brooks writes: "At least for me, these experiences didn't answer questions or settle anything; on the contrary, they opened up vaster mysteries. They revealed wider dimensions of existence than I had ever imagined and aroused a desire to be opened up still further. Wonder and awe are the emotions we feel when we are in the presence of a vast something just beyond the rim of our understanding."

Continuing, he writes, "In his book My Bright Abyss, the poet Christian Wiman writes, 'Religion is not made of these moments; religion is the means of making these moments part of your life rather than merely radical intrusions so foreign and perhaps even fearsome that you can't even acknowledge their existence afterward.'"

If religion is a framework for developing the means of making these moments part of my life, then I guess I'm religious. As I prepare for 2025 and beyond I will religiously cultivate a deeper and more resilient sense of gratitude for the power and the intricacy, the beauty and the mystery, of being immersed in this awesome world.

Upper Cataract Falls

Sulfur Tufts

Flows Over The Serpentine

Deer Mushrooms

Swirl & Splash

Banana Sluggo

Cataract Canyon

Water & Stone

Mossy Boulders

Polypody

Base of Upper Cataract Falls

Toyon Berries

Christmasberry Tree

Lichen on Manzanita Branch

Pileated Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker Looking Sneaky, With Bay Leaves

Mistletoe & Berries On Sargent Cypress

Wrentit in the Chaparral

Witch's Butter & Stereum Fungus

I was pleasantly surprised to actually find this slime mold fruiting. I returned to an area of the mountain where I photographed it a year ago, and sure enough it was here again.

Ascomycete Fungus (Peziza repanda)

Bolinas Ridge

Brief clip of the pileated woodpecker.

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Anna & The Aloe

 

Anna's Hummingbird & Cape Aloe

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Red-breasted Sapsucker

 

Red-breasted Sapsucker, Golden Gate Park

I was walking up a narrow dirt path on the edge of the Oak Woodland and had almost reached the Horseshoe Pit when I flushed a pair of Northern Flickers. I chided myself for walking so fast and being so oblivious of my surroundings. They were no more than ten feet away when they flushed, so I'd probably have gotten a great view if I'd seen them without frightening them away.

The flickers flew up into a nearby pine where they were soon joined by a second pair. While I waited in vain for them to fly back down to the ground, I was consoled by the sapsucker and, shortly afterward, by a Varied Thrush who called out from another tree above and behind me. 

The flickers stayed up in their pine, preening and keeping an eye out, before finally flying away toward the Fuchsia Dell. Although my walk took me through the dell, I heard the flickers' calls but never got another glimpse of them.

Pecking for Treasure

I doubted my ears when I first heard the call of this varied thrush. I don't think I've ever seen one in the city before.

While these northern flickers were preening high on the pine branch, at least one  of them would constantly have its bill dug into its feathers. Then, just briefly, they both stopped at the same time.

A little bit of sunshine started to come out to enliven the morning. This flicker didn't have an obvious partner, but there were probably half a dozen of them in the same general area.

Something about the filtered morning light, and maybe the pair of Adirondack chairs, got me to finally snap a photo of the giant "LOVE" blocks in front of the Conservatory of Flowers.

More ginkgo leaves, but this time with beaded raindrops.

This is the same spot where last week I photographed a lone plum leaf with the  horde of ginkgo leaves (the plum tree is behind me here). Many more leaves have fallen since then.

I always like to see the new year's crop of miner's lettuce getting started.

Mushroom Army

The great egret was hunting from this floating platform of aquatic plants. It appeared to be catching something from time to time, but whatever it was must have been very small. Although park staff have cleared up many of the fallen trees that went down in the December 14th storm (the one where we got a tornado warning), the big tree that toppled into South Lake was not one of them.

Just for the heck of it I also checked out Middle Lake and found a pair of ruby-crowned kinglets foraging and hawking. The one above, without a ruby crown, was the bolder of the two, while the crowned one kept his distance.

It might be that he was staying close to the bathing hole. In these shots, he'd just been chased out of the bath by a Townsend's warbler. (The bath itself was hidden from view.)

Post-bath preening.

The Townie stuck around a little bit to splash in the bathing hole a couple of times. Mostly it would fly into this oak for its post-bath preening.

Townsend's Warbler

This is a couple of super-short video clips of the speedily preening warbler.

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Christmas Chickens

 

Putting on the Ritz at Bay Natives Nursery Near Heron's Head Park

There wasn't a whole lot of wild-bird activity at Heron's Head Park this morning. Across the street, however, the colorful chickens at Bay Natives Nursery were a-crowin', a-cluckin', and a-struttin'. Next door, the goats (the greatest goats of all time) were butting heads and shuffling their hooves, dreaming of having room to roam.

I made my way from there along the coast to the Fort Mason Community Garden where to my surprise I actually got to photograph the Bullock's Oriole that had been sighted there recently. The oriole was mostly interested in pulling at some string, as if it were trying to gather nesting material. Isn't it too early for that?!

Not much happening at Crissy Lagoon, so I continued to Fort Point to get the obligatory selfie with the Golden Gate Bridge, and to watch the surfers. It was a beautiful day to be out around the city.

The sun briefly broke out a time or two today, but I was glad to have worn the cold-weather bike jacket.

Chicken-on-the-Prowl

All Dressed up

Arster Shells

Awaiting Gentrification

Fierce Female

She couldn't quite get the string to let go.

Bullock's Oriole

About to Take Off

This hummingbird would fan his head feathers forward and back as he perched on the branch and looked left and right, then occasionally fan out his throat feathers to belt out a mad line of chirping.

I wondered if these parrots over at Fort Mason are ever the same ones that fly around Golden Gate Heights. Do they tend to stick to their own neighborhoods, or are they more cosmopolitan?

Surfing at Fort Point

Video Clip of this Morning's Eruption.

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