Yuroks and condors and feathers (25)

This afternoon on the way home from a geocaching outing in San Jose, we were listening to NPR and a story about the restoration project of the Yurok Tribe of northern California of the California condor (Gymnogyps californianus, or in Yurok, prey-go-neesh). The official Yurok Tribe account of the project can be found here. It's inspiring and hopeful. As the website explains, the condor has "been spiritually tied to the Yurok Hikelonah—the cultural and ecological landscape—since the beginning of the world.  Condors feature prominently in the Tribe's origin narrative, and its feathers and songs are foundational components of Yurok World Renewal ceremonies." And now they Yurok are actively engaged in extending the range of the condor, which was as good as extinct in the 1980s.

That got me wondering about condor feathers, and about California Indian regalia. So I went a-googling. I didn't find much, but I did find these: 

A condor feather cape of the Wailaki
Tribe of central California,
late 1800s (see related article)

Regalia used in the Yurok Sacred Jump Dance,
one of three dances enacted every two years
in the fall to bring balance back to the world

The making of these regalia has recently gotten renewed attention in an annual(?) culture camp started by David Severns twenty years ago. And here is another article about the condor's importance to Yurok spirituality.

But then I stumbled on the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Feather Atlas: Flight Feathers of North American Birds. There's the condor, of course—which is what brought me here in the first place (check it out: the longest feather here is 64 cm/25 inches long!):

But look—hummingbirds! Rufous hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus) tail feathers (3 cm/1 in), to be precise:

And belted kingfishers (Megaceryle alcyon)!

And I could go on, but I'll just stop with northern (red-shafted) flickers (Colaptes auratus), because they are very well named.

I love it when I start out looking into one thing, and end up in a totally different realm that I never even imagined existed.

Anastasia Vassos, poet (24)

In an earlier iteration of this blog I posted some poems by poets I actually know. I thought I'd continue that theme, in part because this poet, Ann for short, mentioned today on FB that today's poem was just nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. Good on you, Ann! 

Although I've never met Ann in person, we have Zoom-met more or less monthly as part of a small group of poets who met in a workshop with Mark Doty a couple of years ago. I enjoy Ann's poetry, which very often has a Greek theme befitting her own proud background. So here is

Architecture of Anatomy

I remind myself there is no dying
without living
as the technicians slide me into this metal coffer.
They want to see the compromised pillar of my spine.

The machine realigns the water molecules of my fragile scaffolding—
bone, muscle, ligaments rinsed clean in magnetic resonance
the shifts in frequency
sirens in the room
I am tied to the mast
a doppler wave washes over my body
and somewhere an opera tenor joins the cacophony.
Is that a bend in the light?

An image tomorrow will show how the discs
of my vertebrae resemble
the ruins of a temple.

I want my body's Doric order restored—
like the strongest of columns in the Parthenon
before the explosion.

Cremation jewelry (23)

I've been working on an essay (in fragments) about death—partly in relation to past Search & Rescue calls—and trying to balance some of the heavier entries with not-so-heavy anecdotes and information. In researching death rituals and practices from around the world, I learned that South Korea has adopted the relatively new (within the past couple of decades) "tradition" of turning cremation ashes into beads, to be put on display in one's home. 

South Korea has limited land area and a large population—and it is rapidly running out of cemetery space. In 2000, South Korea passed a law requiring families henceforth to remove the bodies of their dead from their graves after sixty years have passed. This law quickly led to an adjustment in how people lay deceased family members to rest, including a marked increase in the incidence of cremation: from 20% to 83% in a single generation, according to The Living Urn.

Although most people still store the ashes of loved ones in columbaria, many today transform them into beads. The ashes are ground into a fine powder, then refashioned; the process takes about two hours. The beads are then placed in clear vases, or set out on dishes. The dead live on.

As I've investigated this trend, I've found more and more sites, right here in the US, that advertise "cremation jewelry." Often these are lockets in which a bit of ash or a snip of hair can be stored, to be worn. Or ashes are incorporated into glass or opal or some other design element. 

Personally, I find all this rather creepy, but then, I don't wear jewelry. My preference, once I'm faced with an urn full of ashes—which, if I'm not lucky and die first, will be my husband David's (my mother sensibly did something in private with my father's ashes, and she entrusted her own to the Trident Society for burial at sea)—will be to scatter small handfuls of them in favorite or otherwise special places. A box will be just fine as a container, until such time comes that the ashes have all been dispersed to the winds.

Then again... I do wear earrings from time to time.

Retirement (22)

I don't know how many times I've threatened to retire. (My friends just laugh at me when I raise the subject.) At the moment, though, I am sorely—sorely—tempted finally to follow through on the... let's call it not a threat, but a promise. 

For those of you who do not know, I am a freelance editor and proofreader. I started out working with the University of California Press—I wrote about that here—but over the years I've had a variety of clients. Lately they include most regularly Yale University Press, the Getty Museum, and occasionally UC Press still (only occasionally because the editors I worked with most of my career have, yes, retired! so I am no longer well known there, which is fine). I try to not work all that much, and often turn down jobs, but I seem to continue to have a steady stream of work.

The last six weeks I have spent working hard on three projects, none of which were especially fulfilling. One was on a Venezuelan photographer whom I found vaguely interesting. I am just about to finish up the enormous technical book on bronze (which I mentioned here; I am eight pages from being done, but it's all bibliography—tiny type, and plot? forget it—so I've bailed for today and will finish and send it off in the morning). And any day now I expect a book back that I did a heavy edit on, and the author informs me that there are "MANY changes." Fortunately, the in-house editor at Yale has told him that I will not be able to reedit, so I am hoping that I will be able to restrain myself and simply accept the author's changes and be done with it. (I of course want a book to be as good as it can be, and this one needed a lot of attention. I fear it will end up a bit of a mess if I don't reedit, but frankly, I'm done with it. The edit was good—I actually read the entire thing in a clean version, something I almost never do—so if the author has meddled, well, that's got to be on him.)

That very attitude, in fact, is part of what is making me think, Maybe it's finally actually time. Sure, I sometimes learn interesting things from the books I edit, and it's nice to bring in a little extra money. But I can learn interesting things simply by reading, and we don't need the extra money. Why don't I just live a little?

Why don't I, for example, do some of my own writing?

Back in October I signed up for a nonfiction writing workshop through Orion magazine, thinking it might jumpstart me to do my own work. The class, led by Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams, kicked off two weeks ago, and I have enjoyed (in my spare time, ha ha!) noodling on a fragmented essay about death, which I started a while back and have dusted off and added to for this class. I've got a couple of other essays started, but they've been back-burnered for quite some time. Maybe it's time to dust them off, too. And start hanging out in coffeehouses—something I keep yearning to do—playing with words, cultivating inspiration, finding out what I think. 

Sure!

I do have a bit of fear that I'll end up like this guy:

But probably, actually, I don't really have to worry about that. And even if my writing ambitions don't get off the ground, there's always the garage to clean and hikes to go on. 

One more week to go, assuming this cleanup comes in tomorrow, as I expect. And then... we'll see. I might be ready, finally. (Though I'll probably keep proofreading for the Getty. It's strangely grounding, and often interesting—the jobs are very often catalogs for upcoming shows. And even if we don't need the paycheck, I like getting a bit of fun money every so often. But: no more editing.)

11/28: As if the gods were mocking me, today I got a query from the curatorial director of the Leeds Art Foundation in NYC (referred by the director of publishing, exhibitions, and design at Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY, with whom I've worked exactly once) asking if I'm available to proofread a two-volume work about Samuel Yellin, "the most important ironworker ever in the US." The two volumes: 474 and 576 pages, respectively. That's over a thousand pages!!! Granted, he said it's "fairly heavily illustrated," and when I googled this Yellin fellow, I find lots and lots of images. He was prolific. So yeah, the gods were listening—they brought me a potential proofreading project; and they're definitely testing me. I haven't responded yet....

Tree work (21)

Every so often I post about doing some trail clearing—specifically, of trees from trails. This morning I did just that yet again, together with the usual suspects, Steve and Beth, Lynn, and Bobby; but today was a little different—our territory wasn't the Ventana or Silver Peak Wilderness, down the coast in the Los Padres National Forest, but an area much closer to home: Jacks Peak Park.* Or rather, a trail outside the park, leading up from a senior housing enclave in Carmel Valley.

We learned about a particularly large and gnarly, poison oak–covered down tree on this unofficial trail via NextDoor—a website that I find totally annoying (so much whining!), but sometimes something useful rises to the surface. Last week a trail user reported this problem tree (it garnered an amazing amount of discussion—but that's NextDoor), and both Steve and I saw it. I told him I'd help. He enlisted a few more and organized an outing.

We started at the Jacks Peak parking lot, walked maybe a mile down Iris Trail and out of the park. We brought along two big crosscut saws, since the main tree was said to measure a whopping 30 inches, but there were two additional trees to deal with as well. 

And what did we find? Someone with a chainsaw had come along and made short work of those pesky trees!

So all we had to do was continue on down the trail to where Beth had brought the car.

Unfortunately, along the way we found a few more down trees. Or maybe I should say fortunately, because what were we there for anyway, except to cut some trees! 

All in all we tackled five Monterey pines, and we were done by 11:30 or 12. A very nice way to spend a morning.

* The park is named after 19th-century businessman and landowner David Jacks, who you will no doubt have heard of thanks to Monterey Jack cheese. That story isn't so pretty. But that's history for you.

Ross Gay, poet (20)

I am feeling zero inspiration today, so here's an easy—and always pleasurable—out: a poem by Ross Gay. Also, simply a reminder to feel joy, if and when it hits you. (See note at end.)

Wedding Poem

    for Keith and Jen

Friends I am here to modestly report

seeing in an orchard

in my town

a goldfinch kissing

a sunflower

again and again

dangling upside down

by its tiny claws

steadying itself by snapping open

like an old-timey fan

its wings

again and again,

until, swooning, it tumbled off

and swooped back to the very same perch,

where the sunflower curled its giant

swirling of seeds

around the bird and leaned back

to admire the soft wind

nudging the bird's plumage,

and friends I could see

the points on the flower's stately crown

soften and curl inward

as it almost indiscernibly lifted

the food of its body

to the bird's nuzzling mouth

whose fervor

I could hear from

oh 20 or 30 feet away

and see from the tiny hulls

that sailed from their

good racket,

which good racket, I have to say

was making me blush,

and rock up on my tippy-toes,

and just barely purse my lips

with what I realize now

was being, simply, glad,

which such love,

if we let it,

makes us feel.

11/26 Turns out I already featured the poem I posted yesterday, "Thank You," at the end of 2020. So today I did the unthinkable: I swapped it out for a different poem! This one does something of the same thing, though: it reminds us to "be, simply, glad." Which is much easier to do if you slow down and pay attention. Something I am continually trying to practice... Also, the illustration may say "gratitude" in Chinese or Japanese. Or it may not. I posted it originally with yesterday's poem, but I'm leaving it today because it's centering and beautiful. No matter what it actually says.

Thanksgiving Day hike (19)

We spent the morning with our friend Lynn exploring a new section of a local regional park, Palo Corona. The hike began off Carmel Valley Road, then wound up to higher ground. A few miles on, we reached Anima Pond (which was occupied by a dabbling wood duck, very exciting!) and a locked gate—to which we had the combination, because Lynn had a permit! (They are trying to keep track of how many users there are during the first six months or so of this section being open, hence the permit.) Once through, we headed downhill—down down down. Trying to ignore the fact that eventually we'd have to go up up up...

One goal for the morning was to find a newly published geocache. The description said it wasn't far from the trail, and yet when we got close, our map pointed us about 300 feet away, straight downhill and next to a creek. Hmmm... Thinking the coordinates might simply be way (way!) off, we vaguely looked "under rocks," per the hint, but soon gave up and got back to enjoying our surroundings. When we reached a junction, we found a good spot to place a cache of our own, in the roots of an oak tree, earning us a geocaching "souvenir." Great! And then Lynn turned right. Wait, there's another trail down here? It wasn't on our geocaching map! 

But of course there was. The new section of the park is named after the San Jose Creek Trail, which... goes along the creek. We had another crack at that cache! The creekside walk was just lovely, and yes, we did find the cache, after a bit of searching (the hinted-at rock was smaller than we envisioned)—and were first-to-find to boot! Huzzah!

On our way out, we trudged up a hill to Whisler Point, for the view, which was splendid. We also planted another cache up there. Now there are three reasons for local geocachers to come visit this section. It's worth it. Even with all the trudging uphill and down. We reckon we walked about 9 miles in all.

Along the way we spotted some red-shafted flickers and a soaring redtail hawk, and back at the car several western bluebirds greeted us and wished us a happy Thanksgiving. And we had a nice long conversation with a ranger, Jeff Niewenhuis. 

Here are a few photos I took (I did not take the picture of the beautiful wood duck above):

Lynn dialing in the combination

Redwoods and sturdy bridges

Dark, but you get an idea of the creekside trail

View of Carmel Bay from Whisler Point

Back in the front range, looking toward the sea

Cottonwoods in their golden glory

Sheep (18)

A number of years ago I bought a silly mug in the UK, featuring "breeds" of sheep. Some of the breeds are real, but then there's shorn sheep, woolly jumper, sheepish sheep, Alan the Lamb (named after a cricket player), 32 MB Ram, Oxford Down, mountain bike sheep (a play on... mountain sheep?), and rebel sheep ("Don't be a sheep!"). Every time I use the mug, I wonder just how many breeds of sheep there really are.

Turns out, a whole lot. 

Fat-tailed Dumba sheep
from India

One 182-page brochure titled "British Sheep and Wool" lists 60 breeds, in the UK alone—and that's only the wool producers. These are subdivided into mountain/fell sheep and lowland sheep, geography defining the quality and protectiveness of their fleece. The American Sheep Industry, meanwhile, identifies 47 breeds, which are classified into six types: meat, fine wool, long wool, dual purpose, hair, and minor breeds. Hair breeds are woolless and do not require shearing; they are raised for their meat. Other types include carpet wool sheep (their name is self-explanatory); fat-tailed sheep, found mainly in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East and comprising some 25% of the world's sheep population; and rat-tailed sheep, originating from Scandinavia and northern Europe.

The website Livestock of the World lists over 200 sheep breeds, from the Acipayam, developed in Turkey, to the Zwartble, from Friesland in the Netherlands! There are, they say, over 1 billion sheep worldwide.  

Perhaps you've heard of Shaun the Sheep, created by Wallace and Gromit's Nick Park. Shaun is a Shropshire sheep. The Woolovers website features the five most famous sheep, including one that, along with a duck and a rooster, was the first terrestrial being in flight (in a hot air balloon, sent up in 1783 by the Montgolfier Brothers) and another that managed to elude shearing for six years: by the time he was rounded up, his wool weighed 27 kg (normal is 4 kg), and his shearing was broadcast live on New Zealand television. Then, of course, there's Dolly, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. She had three mothers, one who provided the DNA, one the egg, and one who carried the embryo. 

Paški sir, or cheese from the
Croatian island of Pag

Fine wool is a favorite for knitters and craftspeople. Here is an explanation of the rating system for different kinds of wool.  And if you're interested in things culinary, consider the nine different kinds of sheep-milk cheese: Manchego (Spain), Roquefort (southern France), Ossau-Iraty (French Basque region), Idiazábal (Basque), Pecorino (Italy), Casu marzu (Sardinia), Feta (Greece), Halloumi (Cyprus), and Ricotta. Though if you go to Wikipedia, you will learn that there are actually 87 kinds of sheep-milk cheese. 

And finally, when I ask Google what the most beautiful sheep in the world is, the answer comes back, Valais blacknose, from Switzerland.

Though I'm rather taken with the Racka sheep, from Hungary.

And the Arapawa (a merino relative), from New Zealand.

And, to end with a breed featured on my mug, the good old Wensleydale. 

Monarch butterflies (17)

Last week we visited our local monarch butterfly sanctuary, in Pacific Grove, and enjoyed reading the informational signage and watching the insects fluttering in the sunshine. It turns out Monterey County has some twenty overwintering sites, from Moss Landing to Big Sur, while the entire state has 400+. The core of the Western monarch overwintering range is in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties. (Eastern monarchs—that is, east of the Rocky Mountains—migrate to the oyamel fir forests north of Mexico City to overwinter.)

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, based in Portland, Oregon, has just launched its annual Thanksgiving Monarch Butterfly Count (Nov. 12–Dec. 4), with a second count coming up around New Year's Day. (The overwintering season runs approximately October through February.) In 2020, the official count in the PG sanctuary was zero, and only about 2,000 butterflies were found in the entire state—down from a high of over 1.2 million in 1997, the year the count was launched. Since 1997, the count has fluctuated at significantly lower levels, and the last several years have been dismal. Everyone thought the Western monarchs were about to go extinct.

But then last year, hopes were buoyed when the count was 13,608 in the PG sanctuary, and over 247,000 for the state as a whole. This year, the numbers seem to be similar: every Friday morning, volunteers from the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History do a census, and last week the number stood at 12,328. 

How are they counted? One by one, when they cluster in loose groups, and by estimating in larger clusters. Allison Watson, former director of education and outreach for the museum, said, "I begin at the tip of the branch, and count ten monarchs grouped together in the cluster. Based on the amount of space those ten monarchs occupy on the branch, I then count by groups of ten up the branch, until I count all of the monarchs on the branch." 

In Mexico, meanwhile, the butterflies cluster so densely that individuals aren't counted; rather, the area of forest that they occupy is what matters, with 6 hectares (about 14 acres) being the minimum for sustained population health.

I could go on, but there's too much! If you're interested in reading more about these fabulous little insects, check out the Wikipedia page, which has a ton of information—including all 24 Asclepias (milkweed) species that the larvae depend on for food, as well as threats to their survival and conservation efforts. And more!

Here are a few photos (not mine).

I will end with a poem, "The Butterflies the Mountain and the Lake," a fragment from a larger poem by Shane McCrae:

It's Saturday   most often neighbor   we
Are walking with our daughter lately   even when / We talk together
everywhere we go we want to go home everywhere   / But oh
hey did you see that story

about the butterflies the mountain and the lake
the  / Butterflies monarch butterflies huge swarms they
Migrate and as they migrate south   as they
Cross Lake Superior instead of flying

South straight across they fly
South over the water then fly east
still over the water then fly south     again / And now
biologists believe they   turn to avoid a mountain

That disappeared millennia ago / No
butterfly lives long enough to fly     the whole migration
From the beginning to the end
they / Lay eggs along the way

Just as you and I   most often neighbor
Migrate together in our daughter   over a dark lake
We make with joy the child we make
And mountains are reborn in her

Lemur hands and feet (16)

Today, all I did was work—cranking to finish a job (the technical bronze volume) by Friday. Which leaves me with nothing really to write about here. I could post a poem, as I sometimes do when I've got nothing. But today I think I'll post some photos I took in Madagascar: of lemur hands and feet. 

The Duke Lemur Center says, "Lemurs are primates, which means they have grasping hands and feet. Their biggest toe (or on a lemur's hand, its thumb) is separated from the others, making it easy for them to grasp branches when climbing. That said, this makes a lemur's thumb only semi-opposable, so lemurs don't have the fine motor skills of monkeys or apes. All primates have fingernails instead of claws, although lemurs have one digit on each foot that is the exception." This exception is the lemur's grooming claw. The lemurs here are brown and white-ruffed, on Lemur Island near the village of Andasibe.