River Glance

Stanborough reed marsh

2011-10-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

A decent sized (alder?) tree has fallen on the spot where I usually stand near the railway bridge. Probably would have time to get out of the way, you will be glad to know, unless I happened to have been asleep at the time. An odd sign has appeared from the railway authority on the underside of the arch of the bridge. It says that any blockage of the watercourse should be reported to the authority as it may affect safety on the railway. Hard to understand, given that the track is perhaps 30 feet above the river. Curious.

Strange illusion, walking along the path, as if the river is higher than the land. Can't be true, of course, the path is only wet from the rain and there was no sign that it has encroached.

Fast-growing shrubs of some sort have reached the same height as the gallows tree so that it no longer stands out quite so starkly. I managed to accidentally scare a geriatric wood pigeon out of a tree; and it, in turn, scared me because I didn't know it was there. Otherwise extremely little wildlife around today: two fishermen, a couple of Coots (no, not the fishermen), and the odd duck. But very little else.

2010-11-07T04:07:00.001-08:00

My eyes and heart are filled with so many beautiful things and I cannot fathom their mystery.

Unfathomable peace

2010-10-09T04:08:00.000-07:00

Nature is not always stunning, not always emotionally moving, not always conventionally beautiful. But if you watch for long enough, its infinite layers in one wholeness, its incredible variety inherent in repeating patterns, and its incessant movement even in stillness are always unfathomable.

And even though the police sirens wail, the helicopter circles an accident on a nearby road and the trains intermittently rush noisily behind me, unfathomable nature is imbued with unfathomable peace. A peace that goes with me when I leave the riverside.

2010-09-01T12:51:00.001-07:00

Most of the swifts here yesterday have gone. South, I guess.

2010-06-28T01:11:00.001-07:00

'The Fall' was not when we left the Garden of Eden. It was when we forgot we are still living in it.

2010-05-15T03:45:00.001-07:00

I mean that the Peace is in you already. Go inside and relax into it...

2010-05-14T07:24:00.001-07:00

The crows are flying at a raven(?) in the birch tree but he's not budging!

2010-04-25T02:50:00.001-07:00

The beauty of this world! We never left the Garden of Eden. We are walking around it with our minds elsewhere and our senses disengaged.

2010-04-25T02:32:00.001-07:00

The stillness in the trees speaks to the stillness in me. They are the same stillness.

2010-04-24T07:37:00.001-07:00

Emptiness - a reminder from Fo-Yan: You shouldn't set up limits in boundless openness, but if you set up limitlessness as boundless openness, you've trapped yourself. This is why those who uderstand emptiness have no mental image of emptiness.

2010-04-24T07:30:00.001-07:00

Zen master Fo-Yan: "Search into your own vision - think back to the mind that thinks. Who is it?" How could this be different from Sri Ramana's vichara?

2010-04-23T04:31:00.001-07:00

Yes there are ancient dolmens on the common where I played as a child. And i used to play around Les Fouillages burial mound (4500B.C.) except it wasn't discovered then.

2010-04-23T02:33:00.001-07:00

I need to stop doing for a long time before I can know what I really want to do ...

2010-03-21T10:07:00.001-07:00

Middle of nowhere. Found some old gateposts. Followed the overgrown path. No gingerbread house. The witch must have moved to the city.

2010-03-14T05:47:00.001-07:00

If a tree falls in a deserted forest, will it make a sound? Shockwaves, yes. But sound occurs only in the mind, nowhere else.

2010-03-14T05:43:00.001-07:00

The trillionth tonne of CO2 emitted is now predicted for my daughter's 46th birthday. Shall we take that risk?

2009-11-28T02:10:00.001-08:00

Wisdom finds outlets where it is needed. It does not need to market itself.

Rats and clouds keep things alive

2009-11-12T08:11:00.000-08:00

Today I walked around the lake the other way. A tree, a fence, a depression that one has come to know from one angle reasserts its independent character by showing you another face. Having seen one rat all summer, now it was one on one side and a pack of six on the other. At least, I assume they were not voles or similar: too many and too familiar. It is a long time since collective nouns at school and I am not sure that we did rats; but 'pack' will do. Is it the dark or the lessening of human company that brings them out into the open?

With the low clouds and much lower light of November mid-afternoon (15:45), the river is inky green-black, a colour I am used to - or at leasts its sea counterpart - from youthful evenings at the beach or harbour. It is not threatening from the bank, but will swallow you forever if you fall into it unprerpared. The speed of the clouds and sway of the trees is enough movement to dispel the recent quiet of calm, sunny October with leaves gently falling as you stroll romantically, trying not to be aware that the beauteous but faltering sunshine is good practice for the slow, sad leave-taking of old age.

The river teaches (2)

2009-10-24T06:18:00.000-07:00

When the river is blocked, it flows around or over or under. But if it can do none of those things, it waits. The water is still. There is no protest, panic or sulking. It just waits. When there is a breach, there is no jubilation; or gloating over the part that is still blocked; or lingering resentment at having been held up. Just forward movement.

Spookier

2009-10-23T10:57:00.000-07:00

Imagine all is calm, no wind, no movement, the trees are entirely still. Imagine a hand takes hold of the root of a sprig of leaves on a tree and sways it vigorously backwards and forwards. You see the sprig sway quite wildly, while all its neighbours are still.

Now imagine there is no hand, but the same happens. The one sprig sways; all the rest are still.

I have seen ths several times: one part of the tree moving quite quickly and swaying over a wide arc while all the rest is totally immobile. You might not spot it straight away. It might be quite a small part of a large tree. But when you do see it, well, um, weird....!! Hard to take your eyes off it.

It's tempting to look around for somone holding a thin piece of string, playing a joke on you. Reason kicks in: there must be a small breeze that is just catching the resonant frequency of the sprig of leaves or twig or branchlet. That does make sense and I can't think of a better explanation.

But more than once now, I have seen this when there is no wind and the air is utterly, utterly still. Reason still says there must be an explanation, but believe me it looks darned spooky.

Knowing nothing

2009-10-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

Knowing nothing

Morning mist (2)

2009-10-23T09:57:00.000-07:00

When I was eight, my parents saved up for us to go on holiday for the first time. To England. We stayed in a boat on the Thames. Apart from the kingfisher my mum saw and I didn't, my abiding memory is waking up shivering at 5am, and seeing the willow in the May morning mist, looking as if it was drinking from the river. I didn't realise it then, but I already loved nature.

Morning mist

2009-10-23T09:34:00.000-07:00

Orange sun, not yet above the treetops. Golden leaves, so many red berries. Feeble rays interlace with drifting banks of mist. The frost glistens. Shivers: hoodie weather.

The grey heron stands motionless in the middle of the lake. A fish flops lazily above the surface and back in again. Watch our for the heron, fish.

The river is dark, no sunlight penetrating here yet. The only fish flicks away before I can reach the bank. A crayfish shell, on the grass, no head, just entrails: do birds or anglers pull them out of the water? The river is subtly higher than last time: where I stood then is now instep deep. The mist forms on the surface as I watch and floats off downstream. Parts of the river, I can imagine Ophelia in.

Millais's Ophelia, I mean.

Animal emotio

2009-10-18T09:08:00.000-07:00

With birds, it seems to me very difficult to spot any emotion in their eyes. Ever looked a wood pigeon straight in the eye and seen the sorts of things you might expect a bird to experience: calm, fright, agitation....? No. Unlike humas, it all seems to be in the body. Fish, the same. You can see with a bird or a fish that they are relaxed, stressed, frightened but it's all in the body.

Fish tracks (2)

2009-10-17T02:58:00.000-07:00

About my post on 24 September, today the accumulated sticks seemed to have shifted and there were less of them. So the water wasn't building up behind them before rushing into the pool. The flow in was gentler.

For the first time, I saw the fish swim several yards further upstream, right to the head of the pool and not be pesuaded to turn round where, normally, they suddenly face a stronger current. This adds weight to my theory that it is the sudden, stronger flow that puts them off. Even the lone crayfish was right at the head of the pool today.

What I couldn't work out, though, is that the three fish I saw all seemed to look alike. They all swam to the head of the pool and disappeared upstream. Or was it the same fish looping back as I desrcibed last time and reappearing on the upstream leg? If so, I couldn't spot the point at which it turned back downstream or any part of its downstream run.

Did three fish break through the barrier? Or did one fish keep eluding me on its way back down...?

Spooky

2009-10-11T11:26:00.000-07:00

Ever been watching the river for a while when suddenly a band of reeds appears out of nowhere, suddenly standing up vertical out of the river? They all rise exactly parallel and exactly in unison, like playing a film backwards of a bunch of soldiers who have fallen rigidly, face first into the river.

The first time, my mind was split just for a second or two , thinking, "That is truly weird: what is going on? But there must be a rational explanation. But that is spooky!! But there must be a reason..."

Of course their natural position is upright. But the river has been flowing so strongly for all the time you were watching, that the reeds have been forced under and out of sight. Suddenly, as the river slows for some reason, they rise up apparently from nowhere....

The river teaches

2009-10-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

Was watching the Ver as it flows through the articial ladder of pools - do they have a proper name? - just below the Fighting Cocks. Despite the water rushing in at one end and out of the other, there is remarkably little movement on the surface. Spiritual development can be the same. The change may be happening and deepening all the time with next to nothing visible on the surface.

Crayfish

2009-10-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

It was all alone again.

Autumn

2009-10-03T02:09:00.000-07:00

Very autumny compared with beautiful sunny last weekend. Noticeably less anglers on the lake and those that are look closer to the ground, huddled in little tents. Force 6-7 today. Gives the impression in parts of the river flowing 'upstream' but of course it is not. The twisted tree looks darker and less silvery, may because not sunny or may be has absorbed more water. The crayfish was foraging in the same place under the bridge. Same one? Or are they just few and far between? A single rabbit hopped lazily into the undergrowth under the gallows tree as I walked past. No urgency!

Sunset

2009-09-25T10:56:00.000-07:00

Could see the sun through the undergrowth all the way around tonight. Strange effects to go with a screeching bird I couldn't see.

A heron took off from nearly under the railway bridge. Took off and banked in one move, like a jet fighter being scrambled.

Fish tracks

2009-09-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

Apart from loads of tiny fish, I seem to see only two in the dip beneath the railway bridge. One about 10 inches; the other 7-8 inches, I suppose. Unsurprisingly, they seem to swim up the side where the water flows upstream; run into the water rushing down over the accumulated sticks at the mouth of the 'pool' which persuades them to turn around ; and then dart away down the far side where the downstream flow is fastest. They are only visible for may be 15 seconds (never timed it) and so I wonder whether they swim in 3-to 4-minute loops up and down the rivr of which I only see the very upstream-most tip.

Peace

2009-09-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

I missed visiting the river today. Except that the river is getting into me. There is a peace in watching it just flow... flow... flow...

It never intends to flow, or worries about how it is flowing, or tries to flow better. It just flows... flows... flows...

Jay's feather?

2009-09-23T09:23:00.001-07:00

At the weekend, found an exquisite blue and black striped feather at Sherrardswood Park. From a jay may be?

Stanborough Reedmarsh Nature Reserve

2009-09-23T02:05:00.000-07:00

That is its real name, apparently.

Wren

2009-09-23T02:04:00.000-07:00

Saw possible the smallest wren today that I have ever seen. Took flight from the wooden walkway as I approached.

Naming things

2009-09-23T02:01:00.001-07:00

I have two competing urges with nature. One is to name everything so that I can discuss it meaningfully with other people. The other is to experience nature directly without naming at all, which sometimes is an added layer that detracts from the experience.

Fauna

2009-09-23T01:56:00.001-07:00

Occurred to me it's mostly birds, fish and insects that catch the eye at Stanborough. Wildlife are not so much in evidence but probably invisibly abundant in the reed beds. Just as a I was thinking I rarely see even a mouse or rat, never mind a vole, I spotted a small mouse nearly under my feet. Dead, unfortunately. Had a suprisingly long 'nose' - just like one that was on a children's programme years ago - forget the name - help me someone....

I did see a terrepin last year. Not one of those little ones you see in zoos. A big one with a shell the same size and curvature as (the top of) a football. In fact it was blackish and I thought it was a football stuck inthe reeds and turned black over time. Until it stuck its head and backleg out.

Damp

2009-09-23T01:50:00.000-07:00

Lots of dew today. Everything is damp. Slippery in trainers. The elder berries look slightly mushy. The ragged robin does too. The stuff that looks like old man's beard but probably isn't is eveyehere and disintegrating. The undergowth is over-growing the path and smelles danker.

Bubbles

2009-09-22T13:19:00.000-07:00

The river bed seems much more active at the moment, releasing loads more bubbles, methane presumably. Is it seasonal or just after heavy rain increasing the flow and churning things up?

Often the bubbles seem to stick more to the bed one side, so they gain angular momentum as they realease and spin end over end to the surface.

Favourite spots

2009-09-20T05:28:00.001-07:00

Stanborough Nature Reserve - yes you can see modern civilisation poking through at various points but that makes it all the more valuable

Fulling Mill - how the Mimram flows back on itself before it dives under the road

The ridge on Linces Farm - even though you can't see it, you know the Mimram is there, quietly getting on with finding its way through non-descript bits of Hertfordshire.

Rainfall

2009-09-20T04:34:00.000-07:00

Several times this summer, the rain pushed the river over its banks in Stanborough Nature Reserve. The first time I can think of, the river was spilling onto and had flooded the paths so that they were impassable without wellies or wet feet. But the dips in the paths were retaining the water. The other time I remember, the river had given up on the paths. The paths had been overcome and the river was flowing sideways over them and down into the undergrowth, as well as along its usual course.

Some locals looked really annoyed at being unable to do their usual walk. Personally, I preferred the gentle reminder from nature that it can be enjoyed, but that it doesn't pay any attention whatsoever to our wishes.

I wonder if the increased rainfall is an emerging pattern, so that we will come to talk of the 'summer rains' in 50 years or so. Or just another blip.

Local perception

2009-09-20T04:21:00.001-07:00

On the Wheathampstead to Luton road yesterday, I saw a sign saying "Upper Lea Valley" something or other. Strange, because a stretch of the river miles downstream in London is also called that. It shoes how what's what on a river is so driven by local perception.

Expressing nature in words

2009-09-20T04:10:00.000-07:00

It is so hard to capture in words without cliche the rhythmic but changing flex of a branch in the breeze, the swaying of a reed, the flick of a fish's tail, the curl of the river water back upstream, the zip of a pond skater, the urgency of a fleeing bird...

That is why the Japanese invented haiku, I imagine.

Sunlight trapped in river's flow
Words cannot caputre.
Sharp haiku draws the essence.

Crayfish

2009-09-20T04:02:00.000-07:00

Saw two white eyes slowly approaching me across a shallow, sunlit stretch of the river. Eyes but not eyes. More like white flashes. Flashes, as it turns out, on the claws of the first crayfish I have seen in the river. May be 15 cm long. It was only the angle of the sunlight penetrating that swathe of river that made it visible.

Slowly but intently advancing, foraging under ever piece of branch and debris on the bed, it was pre-historic looking. More claws than body. It recoiled backwards only when a train clattered overhead. Made me think it might outlast us humans.