Greetings Human Beings! The fourteenth song of the Plant Songs project is called Little Bear.
I was planning to write some words about the style of this song, but I changed my mind, thinking that those words might interfere with you experiencing it for what it is. All I’ll say is that I strive to embrace diversity - diversity of musical styles, and even more so diversity of life. Maintaining diversity is a key element in us surviving on this planet. We’re seeing massive insect decline and they are foundational in our ecosystems. You can help stop mass extiction by planting native plants, removing invasive plants, avoiding herbicides and pesticides, leaving your leaves on the ground, converting lawn to garden, just to name a few. And protect cultural diversity by turning off the television and social media, cooking from scratch, maintaining appropriate family traditions and creating new ones, and making original art, just to name a few of those. Okay, I’m done being bossy.
Diversity is a benefit of a project like this. Because there will be many songs, there’s not much pressure on any one of them to have longevity. Therefore I can experiment and explore many styles. It’s not important to me for them to stand as unified body of work as Plant Songs. In the future I can pick handfuls of them to present unified statements in the form of concerts or albums.
Now I’d like to tell you the story about this title, and hold on to your hats, it’s a good one!
This morning I set out for my hike up and down Mount Beacon as I do three times a week. It was in the low 20s Fahrenheit this morning, the coldest hiking weather yet since I started this practice. It was also quite still, very little wind, and very little leaf material in the canopy to make any breeze audible. I hiked speedily up the trail, thinking about tasks that I had to do today. But even on the way up the trail today, I sensed a lot of special energy. It was one of those days that seemed ripe for some kind of special encounter.
I noticed that the ice formations in the brook had grown since Monday. Somehow they seemed to change the timbre of the flowing water. The ice at Rainbow Falls was particulalry beautiful. I proceeded up Lambs Hill until my twenty minute timer went off, at which time I plopped down on a rock, took a rest, had a drink, and looked in the direction of the sun, which shines beautifully on Lamb’s Hill in the morning. After catching my breath I did four cycles of 4-7-8 breathing, which I do regularly to calm myself and create awareness. Patches of snow were visible on the north-facing slopes that are seen from Lambs Hill. I noticed the stillness again. I heard an animal rustling the leaves nearby and I assumed it was a squirrel, which I’ve observed burying nuts often this Fall. I greeted the squirrel even though I didn’t see it, and began my descent back down the trail.
The descent proceeded normally except that everytthing seemed to be even more vibrant than usual. Maybe the cold had to do with it, or perhaps all the beings on the mountain were anticipating some weather coming. I reached the falls again and I splashed some ice water on my face as I do every time I descend past them. Remember that special energy the water has that I wrote about in the Flowform post a couple weeks ago? I want to be in contact with that, so a few splashes on my face gets the job done. I proceeded downward past the largest living Hemlock tree on the trail, then through the Hemlock Graveyard, over Slippery Rock, past Columbine Conglomerate and Relief Flat, all spots along the trail that I’ve named over the last year. I passed a nice Liriodendron, which I greeted as I usually do with arms in the air and a “yesssss”.
I continued past a big rock that I think is a glacial erratic, and I came to a spot on the trail that often has a stong energy to it. Several times I’ve had to stop in this area and acknowledge some kind of special presence. Today it was particularly strong. And I noticed that there was an absence of songbirds in this spot today. It’s an eerie feeling when you notice that. Something was up today. I stopped in my tracks. I stood and stared into the woods upslope. Then I sat down on a rock and made myself as still and quiet as I could. I sensed something. Then I heard some rustling of leaves. Another squirrel I thought at first. But no, this was different. And I actually noticed a different scent. Cool!
I waited what seemed like five minutes. It was probably only about 30-45 seconds. And then I saw the most peculiar thing. There was an exposed rock outcropping covered in moss. And I could just barely make out two cute paws on top of the ledge, then the creature slowly lifted its head up over the ledge to take a peek at me. It was a little bear! First I was extremely excited. Then I remembered stories about bear cubs and protective mama bears. And there was something very weird about a cub being out this time of year. Shouldn’t you be hibernating little bear? Suddenly feeling quite nervous about mama bear, I quickly snapped a photo from a distance, and as calmly as I could I hurried down the trail. I never saw mama bear. The photo isn’t too great, but rather than embed it in the blog, I thought it was best to upload a hi-resolution photo so that you can zoom in to see little bear. Click here to see the photo!
I hope you enjoy Little Bear!