SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN

Eagle at Black Cat Spur

I have a whole new season in my life.  Here it is the end of June and already I've watched trees bud and flower, birds arrive and fledge, the shades of green surround my house. I've been swimming and kayaking.  We've had ferocious heat and thunderstorms the likes of August.  

Some far future day, scientists will pinpoint 2012 as the turning point in Climate Change.  It's happened.  It's raging wildfires in Colorado, 108 degrees F. in the central United States, and flooding in the British Isles.   It's the loss of glaciers and the water they provide for billions of people.  It's New England blueberries ripe the end of June.

Exxon Oil's top banana-head was quoted saying, we can solve any climate problems with engineering.  Ah, your engineered environment.  Your engineered education.  Your fake food.  I grew up near Springfield, Massachusetts, home of Monsanto -- "your life on chemicals".  

It's the zenith of stupidity.

How to stay sane in this society?  I go to the wilderness again and again.  Here in northern New Hampshire, I find something to believe in -- the eagles have returned.  The snipe danced and called for mates on the 18th of June.  The loons came back to the waterway of their birth and hatched one egg.  The baby was in the water and swimming within forty-five minutes.

But, even my northern escape has changed immeasurably.  The mountains host big, expensive summer homes.  The small cabins are mostly gone or turned into what people seem to need in the wilds -- jacuzzis, Wi-Fi, and air conditioning.   Northern Pass still threatens the people and the environment with its steel towers buzzing with DC power heading for Connecticut, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C.

So, I go into wild places and gather my strength from:  A snipe calling...

A young bald eagle.

A Minke Frog

Mother and baby loon.

There's even the grave of a young veteran at Coon Brook Bog.  His friends and family honor him often with flowers, a flag, and two turkey feathers.

Someone else believes in the sanctity of wild places.  May they, too, find peace here.