Fleeting Fall

The rain pinged off the skylights and plunked in the gutters this morning. The leaves were at first slow to turn in our area, perhaps the result of warm dry conditions through September, but then the colors seemed to come in a flood. The yard is now covered with a blanket of wet leaves and many of the trees are already bare. I haven’t yet cleaned my gutters, I usually leave it until all the leaves are down. Otherwise I’ll just do it twice. I’m a man of logic and economy of effort when it comes to such chores.

The colors have been quite spectacular this year. I know many of the trees by sight, but there are also many varieties that I can’t identify readily. I should study the books more and do a little fieldwork. For I dearly love trees. This area is, of course, known for the brilliant oranges, reds, and golds of the maples. We have a number of them around our house, as well as black walnuts (not my favorite trees because they are so messy this time of year), oaks, hickory, catalpa, aspen, locust, and many others that I don’t know. We have lots of evergreens as well, but they are not the spotlight trees right now.

Last Saturday morning I left the house early to catch the early morning light, and drove north and west into the rural back roads between our house and Interlaken just to the north. The fields are mostly harvested with some corn still standing, but others are just stubble. The clouds were dense and scattered and the sun was peeking out from time to time providing the most incredible light. The landscape had a real storybook look about it. Geese flew overhead traveling between the lake below and the fields of corn stubble up in these rural hills.

During this season, I believe I love the roadsides, ditches, and weeds almost as much as the brilliant trees. Some of the less desirable plants often provide the best color. My true favorite is the sumac.

These plants change with the widest gamut of color combinations, often all within a single stand of plants or within a single plant itself. Reds, yellows, purples, blues, greens, burgundy and magenta, orange and lime. They are remarkable and I could make a study of just their color alone during autumn. Their reds are the most brilliant nature creates. And they are one of the few plants I have seen that can turn a rich deep indigo blue.

The fields are also full of dry weeds that are so beautiful in their own right. Fluffy heads of dried goldenrod, milkweed with open pods spilling out silky floating seeds, teasels and thistles. When back lit, they light up as if beacons in the dried fields.

The deep woods still appear dark and green in places, yet the trees along the outer borders sit bright and colorful against the deep black backdrops.

It’s an incredible visual time of year here, but like the spring season, much too fleeting, and gone before you know it.

All images are Copyright © George Cannon, all rights reserved.

A Sure Sign of Change

In my neighborhood there is a certain and predictable sign of the changing seasons that is not reliant upon migrating birds or temperature fluctuations or even the changing hours of daylight. It is reliant on Mr. Miller, and his flower pot creations.

Ronald Miller is a man who takes great pride in a beautifully landscaped yard. He lives on the corner at the top of our road and his yard is a showplace of flowers and shrubs and hand built stone walls and gardens. He keeps his grass manicured and his leaves cleared and his driveway spotless unlike mine where the rule of thumb is don’t let things get over knee high and let nature take its course.

So I often feel guilty when I drive by the Miller’s for my own neglect, but I am always left with a smile as I pass, for the humor and whimsy that Mr. Miller presents all his neighbors with every day.

In my collection of images on Ornamental America, the Miller’s house is a favorite stop. He has constructed a family of flower pot people that he changes with the seasons, dressing them in garb appropriate for whatever holiday or seasonal trend is current. He has a flower pot man that sits in a garden area that’s not visible from the road. But in plain view for all who pass are the flower pot woman, the little flower pot guy, and their flower pot dog.

I have to be on the lookout so as not to miss a costume change, for if I dawdle and postpone my stop to photograph them, they change before I know it. This summer I missed the little guy’s summer wardrobe with pith helmet and garden tools, so will have to wait until next season to record that one. But I made a point to stop today, however, so as not to miss the Halloween costumes.

My Ornamental America series focuses on things people use to decorate their yards and includes everything from painted rocks to deer made from logs to statues of the Virgin to rock cairns and all kinds of kitsch. But most of these are static objects placed like totems and left to quietly weather. The Miller’s flower pots have life and personality and character. And they give me a smile every time I pass. Thanks, Mr. Miller. It’s a little bit of joy shared, a light hearted free gift. And I appreciate it.

All Images are Copyright © George Cannon, All Rights Reserved

Thoughts about compassion.

Here in Ithaca we have had the great pleasure of hosting His Holiness the Dali Lama of Tibet for two days this week. There is a small but well established community of Tibetans here at the local Monastery and a publishing company, Snowlion Publications, that specializes in books on Tibetan subjects and Buddhism. His Holiness came to Ithaca to bless the site of the new Namgyal Monastery that is being built just outside of town in Danby. Tuesday he came to the museum where I work to bless the beautiful sand mandala constructed by the monks in his honor, and to attend a private luncheon.

Afterwards he moved on to Barton Hall on the Cornell Campus where he gave a talk on “A Human Approach to World Peace”. Then Wednesday he spoke at the State Theatre at a ceremony of “Prayers for World Peace”, then at Ithaca College where he delivered “Eight Verses on Training the Mind”. I was only privileged to witness his arrival at the museum. Everything else was by invitation or sold out for about the last year. There was an amazing flurry of police and secret service and FBI with his entourage that was like something out of Hollywood and an incredible seriousness among all those planning and setting up for his appearances. I am aware of his stature as a dignitary, yet in the midst of it all, he was humble and human and welcoming to every soul.

I had the good fortune to meet him more closely several years ago when he came to Ithaca and gave a private audience to a group of people at Wisdom’s Goldenrod near Watkins Glen, NY. And we are so fortunate that in our isolated upstate fingerlakes area, the monks of Namgyal have chosen this place as a center of study among all the other places in the world where they might settle. I have always felt as though this area is one of those spots where great spiritual energy exists, much like areas of the Southwest, Sante Fe, Sedona, or spiritual sites like Stonehenge or the Andes of Peru. When I sit on the shore down at the bottom of our road where the stream empties into the lake and look back at the level ground of the Camp Barton Boyscout Camp I visualize an encampment of Native Americans and think about the ceremonies that might have taken place in our own back yard looking down at the falls below. There is great energy here. And the spirits of human existence stretching back for centuries.

With the Dali Lama’s visit we are all reminded that compassion and caring for others, non-violence, and tolerance should be foremost among our daily endeavors, yet they seem so hard to find amidst a world of war, and fear, and hatred, and intolerance. We are all human beings, seeking to live our lives in happiness and peace. Yet we treat each other with suspicion and disregard and disrespect. We cannot seem to learn that one’s beliefs should not be a barrier to the acceptance that all people are entitled to their own beliefs, that we should not force ours onto someone else, nor persecute or criticize them for their own. We must look to and support those who come at the world with honest and compassionate hearts and live our own lives as examples of what we want from others. Peace seems so far out of reach.

Let us all bring peace to those around us everyday and catch ourselves when we stray from this path, in hopes that we can send a wave of compassion around the world, instead of fear and hate and injustice and war.

All Images are Copyright © George Cannon, All Rights Reserved

Feeling Grateful On An Autumn Day

I was born in mid-September. I have always loved this time of year. As I get older, I get a little more hesitant about accepting the coming of Winter, but Fall has always been a favorite season. I love the fields in late September and early October, the colors, the texture, the warm afternoon sun, harvest time, the dry corn stalks, the squash and pumpkins, the crisp mornings and the warm days.

I used to spend a week at this time every year in the Adirondack mountains at a lodge on Blue Mountain Lake. The same people came every year and ate large meals morning and evening family style at common tables then spent the days wandering through the woods on well worn trails or canoeing or shopping in the small hamlets of the Adirondack Park.

As a child I had to travel a great distance to be in woods like those of the Adirondacks. But these days I need only go just down the hill, less than two miles to Taughannock Falls State Park.

I spent Sunday afternoon feeling very grateful that such a beautiful preserve is so close. I don’t take advantage of this park enough and I guess have always taken it for granted to some degree because it is so close. But on Sunday afternoon when it was warm and breezy and a brilliant blue sky day, I walked the rim trail and reminded myself how wonderful this park is. there are all manner of trees and plants and fungi. Wildlife and flowers. I have a great affection for hemlock trees and the parks of the Fingerlakes are rich with stands of these beautiful evergreens. The groves are dark and the ground below them is soft and quiet built of layers of their tiny needles and decaying stumps, scattered with ferns and low vegetation. The paths of the rim trail wind over well worn roots as it snakes along the edges of the gorge.

Taughannock Falls is the highest waterfall east of the Mississippi, higher even than Niagara. It can be a tiny trickle or a roaring torrent, depending on the season and the rainfall. The gorge is wide and deep with sheer walls.

The rim trail rises steeply on the North side up a climb of about 120 stone steps from the base of the park by Cayuga Lake. Up past the campground eventually leading up to the parking area at the overlook where many drive to observe the falls. Then continues past through beautiful woods, occasionally breaking out by the road until it reaches the crossing bridge at the top of the park. Then turns back along the South side to wind back down to the base again. All along the way affording beautiful views of the gorge, the falls, the lake and creek below.

I passed many hikers walking their dogs and their children, but for the most part, walked alone quietly, feeling the breeze and hearing little more than my own footsteps and the cawing of the crows overhead. When I am in a place like this I can’t help but think of how the Native Americans that once lived in these woods must have experienced this place, and even farther back to when the glaciers were carving out these valleys, and the eons of water flow through this gorge that so gradually carved out this incredible landscape.

I am blessed to live here, so close to this beauty, to have it literally in my back yard and free to walk whenever I choose. I am thankful and lucky. It’s a gorgeous spiritual place.

All Images are Copyright © George Cannon, All Rights Reserved