Category: Places

A Pumpkin Marks the Spot

I was walking around Hills Pond yesterday and came across a woman holding a small pumpkin up in one hand. I asked her if she would mind stopping so I could get a photo of the lovely image. She told me she was bringing that pumpkin to mark the spot where Scouts would be leaving 75 other pumpkins for the “Spooky Walk” that evening.

Sure enough, I noticed her pumpkin sitting on a hill as I continued around the pond and decided to return in the hopes of getting a few good photos. A full moon should help even though it would be getting quite dark by the time of the event. I had seen people setting up for the Spooky Walk in a previous year and it looked like it could be quite interesting.

As she had told me would be the case, that “starter” pumpkin had been joined by many others – a back row spelled out “S P O O K Y.” Hopefully, the photos below will give you some idea of the highly creative nature of this home spun event.

As I walked back along the path through the deep woods I was glad that I had remembered to bring a flashlight. By that time, quite a few other points of light were coming toward me along the path. I could hear parents reassuring their children that the pond where the event takes place was quite nearby.









Softer Colors This Fall

I have noticed that the colors this fall have been a bit different. While there are fewer trees or plants with deep purples and bright reds, there is a richness. It does not feel like something is missing. More like under the surface a dreamy depth has been added. And it is all so welcoming – like you could curl up and take a nap in the soft colors’ warm embrace.

These images were taken in the last few days at Menotomy Rocks Park in Arlington, Massachusetts USA with its paths, woods, pond and outcrops, as well as in nearby Lexington. Besides woods, Lexington’s Dunbar Meadow conservation area has truly spectacular wetlands and meadows.
























Gratitude Practice – Then & Now

A number of years ago before COVID changed our world forever, I set up a tiny room as a place for meditation and for sharing tea. Each morning, I would go to that room, sit on a stool facing the window at one end and say “Thank you for what is needed when it is needed.” Then I would sit on the other matching stool, face the interior wall and say, “Thank you for the peace and strength that is always available.” I did this every morning for several months.

I realized there was an aspirational quality to all of this.

Joseph Goldberg says In Mindfulness; A practical Guide to Awakening, on page 384, “the consequences or results of an action are conditioned by the moral qualities of both the actor and the recipient of the act.” In this case, I was both actor and recipient and the practice seemed to both drew upon and reinforce my wish to live in ways that encouraged openness and compassion in myself and others.

There was a shift. I began to sense I was in a dialogue with the universe. I took the various forms of support that found me as signs I was on the right track with a project. It was easier to see when I needed to do some hard internal work on what might be getting in the way of my dreams. Just saying “peace and strength” connected me to something much more powerful and larger than myself, and I began to see things from a less narrowly selfish point of view.

Now that the world seems so full of suffering and fear, personal mindfulness practices, like this one, might be even more relevant. And first of all we need to stream ourselves and others all the compassion we can muster, so we can see that there are still opportunities available to take action that can make a positive difference. This can be quite close to home. In times of increasing crisis, simple things like a hug, a listening ear, or remembering to take some quiet time for ourselves can make a world of difference.




Mushrooms: Fall 2023

I expected this fall’s crop of mushrooms would be different from last season’s given our highly changeable conditions these days.

Fungi, slime molds and lichens can tell when conditions are right to produce fruiting bodies and disperse spores. That window of opportunity appeared to come quite early in spring and summer this year. But interesting examples are still popping up. If I manage to capture worthy portraits of their splendid forms, I will add them below.






The tiny fruiting bodies above are those of lichen – not mushrooms





























A Sunrise Gathering

When I went for my walk this morning, there was quite a gathering on the crest of the hill in Robbins Farm Park. The sun had not quite risen and a pink dawn mixed with gray clouds. There could easily be over a hundred of them – one of the largest gatherings I had ever seen in this park.

I asked a young man why they were here, he told me that it was “Senior Sunrise.” Evidently, my town’s high school takes advantage of the opportunity that the park presents for seniors to witness the dawn of a new day over Boston.

I had come out hoping to catch sight of the “super blue moon.” This second full moon of the month is referred to as a “blue moon” because they are relatively rare. In this case, it was also a “supermoon” which occurs when the moon is closest to us in its orbit around earth making the full moon appear a bit larger than usual.

I was lucky to catch it – just visible in a gap between trees to my right:

As the crowd began to disperse, I overheard a young lady say, “The bad classes only got worse, while the good classes got better but I find it hard to concentrate after 45 minutes no matter what class it is. I’m glad that’s over.”

Although I refuse to consider myself superstitious, I was surprised to realize that getting older has only made me hope all the more that the conjunction of a lovely sunrise and a super blue moon might prove particularly auspicious for these young people who were moving on with their lives in particularly challenging times.

Spring & Summer Finds in 2023

Once again it has been an unusually rainy spring and summer with mushrooms in mossy spots in the woods as well as in our yards and even cracks in sidewalks.

Now that I have been paying more careful attention for a couple of years, I am finding examples that you might not normally think of as mushrooms, as well as slime molds with their fruiting bodies deposited where the wind can help with propagation.
















































Changeable Woodland Treasure

Wasn’t it a bit early for mushrooms? I had never seen such a fuzzy yellow growth. Perhaps it was something else. When I posted a photo online, I learned it might be a young dyer’s polypore. Evidently, the timing of all kinds of things is more variable these days.

I found two. They both started out as fuzzy yellow lumps and kept changing. Dyer’s polypore seemed correct as there were certainly pores rather than the usual gills on the undersides.

I learned dyer’s polypores can be used to stain fibers a number of different colors – yellows, various shades of browns and even greens – depending on the type of fiber and how it is pretreated. This video shows it being used to dye wool lovely shades of yellow.

The first two photos below show the two I found mid-way through their cycle and the remaining photos show the changes that each went through closer in.



Young one – quite yellow and quite fuzzy

Beginning to turn brown

Expanding and flattening out

Changing colors around the edge

Getting harder with light edge

After rain

Another young one

Seen from the side

A few days older

Turning colors and flattening out

Seen from underneath

After rain

Several days later

Getting harder and drying out

Path Shadows

After noticing the effects of light at the highest elevation of Menotomy Rocks park, I began to notice the many interesting compositions that would fade and reappear lower down along its dirt paths.

Leaves seemed to be acting like lenses producing patterns with soft rounded shapes while crisp leaf and branch shapes danced over the paths. I had found another worthy subject to capture in photos. No matter how often I come here, this nearby park can surprise me with new delights.


















Dappled Light and Shadow

Trees have taken root among the moss and lichen-covered granite outcrops in a secluded high spot in Menotomy Rocks Park. There are wide open spaces between patches of vegetation where the soil is deep enough to support larger roots.

Morning or evening are generally considered good times to capture light and shadows, but up here, the noon sun creates interesting shadows as well. This high spot with its scattered blueberry bushes and mixture of trees always seems so much more alive on a bright sunny day.









Treasure Hidden in Plain Sight

The odds of finding that particular rock again seemed slim. When I first noticed it in the leaf litter, it looked organic, perhaps a late season fungus, so I took a quick photo and continued on without noting the location.

But in reviewing the photos I took on that walk, I realized that this was no fungus. The interesting bubbly texture was glassy, not soft, and clearly part of an agate; I saw suggestions of macro quartz crystals within fortification bands. It was quite unlike the common gray, white veined, or sometimes salmon and green rocks that lie scattered everywhere in Menotomy Rocks Park.

Agates are not normally found in eastern Massachusetts. Perhaps a glacier picked this one up, carrying it some distance from its point of origin.

I would welcome the opportunity to examine the agate from all angles, if I ever come across it again, but it somehow seems fitting for this rare treasure to remain hidden in plain sight among the many rocks of its new woodland home.



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