A Prairie Homecoming

“There’s nothing in the world so strong as grass.” — Ellis Peters

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The last few months seem like a dream.

This past week, restrictions in Illinois have lifted enough that I’ve been able to hike the Schulenberg Prairie for the first time since April 1. I go early, when the sun is still climbing the eastern sky and the spider’s thrown webs dazzle with drops of dew.

It’s a bit surreal to be out here again, especially since the prairie remains unburned—and will remain so this season. Without fire, the wild prairie roses are tall and glorious.

The bumblebees work the blooms, joined by other insects.

Carrion flower towers over the prairie, its other-worldly tendrils and seedheads adding to the surreal feeling.

Closer to the ground, prairie phlox—beaded with dew drops—splatters the grasses with lavender, white, and pink in a multitude of hues and tiny patterns.

If you didn’t know better, you’d think the photo above and below were different species. But they are colorful variations of the same.

Near by, I lift up the smooth Solomon’s seal leaves.

Every square inch of prairie holds something to discover.

Me and my prairie volunteers have been absent these past months, but the life of the prairie continued unfolding. A tiny Hobomok skipper nectars at the red clover which hugs the edges of the gravel trail.

I don’t see any monarch butterfly caterpillars on my hike, but this week they showed up in my backyard prairie on my butterfly weed plants. They are likely here as well, but invisible to my eyes in the tallgrass.

Dragonflies are everywhere. Common green darners. Baskettails. A black saddlebag dragonfly or two. A common whitetail dragonfly flutters in front of me on the path, then stops to rest. Warming up.

Deep in the grasses on each side of the trail are teneral damselflies, still not fully colored or able to fly very far. Eastern forktails and stream bluets, like this one below, respond to the warming day with more activity near Willoway Brook.

Because dragonfly monitoring work has not resumed at the Arboretum, I don’t have the pressure—and pleasure!—of counting these species today, or jotting down hash marks on a clipboard to submit data. Yes, I miss it. But I realize I am also free to relax and enjoy my hike, without worrying about my surveys. Accepting this, instead of letting it be frustrating, is a good challenge.

I think about this pause in my normal steward and monitoring work as I hike and reacquaint myself with the wildflowers. The white wild indigo is in its first tentative flush of bloom.

Soon it will flood the prairie with white. The purple meadow rue is open, as are the tiny flowers of prairie alum root. The first pale purple coneflowers are opening. All blessedly normal.

And yet. So much is still dream-like, off-kilter. Other hikers pass me wearing masks. We step off the path, six feet apart. The prairie goes on, but we are changed.

My band of prairie volunteers and monitors hope to resume our data gathering and prairie work soon. We will be different than we were last season. And like all changes, it will take a while to adapt to this “new normal.”

As I pass our prairie planting display beds, overgrown now without us to care for them, I’m caught by something yellow. Moth mullein, a rather benign non-native, enchants me with its resemblance to a moth’s antennae. I’ve seen it with white flowers, as well as the yellow flowers. Because of its charm, I always find it difficult to pull, even when it pops up in one of our planting beds. Today I can leave it in good conscience and enjoy it.

Delayed gratification. My prairie volunteer work here—-and my dragonfly work— will have to wait. Nothing about the tallgrass prairie ever moves quickly, I remind myself. The prairie will be here, waiting for us, when the time is right.

Today, all that remains is to relax…and enjoy being here. At last.

*****

The opening quote is from Ellis Peters’ Father Cadfael Chronicles, An Excellent Mystery, one of 20 books in the series. Ellis Peters was the pen name for Edith Pargeter (1913-1995). Her books were adapted for radio, and later for a television series.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby, and taken at the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL, unless otherwise noted: mixed grasses with dew; spiderwebs with morning dew; smooth rose (Rosa blanda) with unknown bumblebee; smooth rose (Rosa blanda) with unknown bumblebee and (possibly) the margined calligrapher fly (Toxomerus marginatus); carrion flower (Smilax spp.); prairie phlox (Phlox pilosa); prairie phlox (Phlox pilosa); smooth Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum); Hobomok skipper (Lon hobomok); monarch butterfly caterpillar (Danaus plexippus); common whitetail dragonfly (Plathemis lydia), Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; stream bluet (Enallagma exsulans); white wild indigo (Baptisia lactea –species names vary, including “alba,” I am using Wilhelm’s Flora as my source); panic grass or rosette grass (Dichanthelium spp.); bench overlooking the prairie; moth mullein (Verbascum blattaria).

Thanks to Butterflies of the Eastern United States Facebook group for the confirmation on the skipper ID.

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Join Cindy for a class online this summer!

“Tallgrass Prairie Ecology Online” begins in September! Work from home at your own pace (with suggested assignment deadlines) for 60 days to complete the material, and meet other prairie volunteers and stewards on the discussion boards and in the optional ZOOM session. Register here.

“Dragonfly and Damselfly Beginning ID Online” through The Morton Arboretum. July 8 and July 10 –two morning classes online, with a day in between for you to work independently in the field. Register here.

Coming soon in June! Chasing Dragonflies: A Natural, Cultural, and Personal History. Pre-order now from your favorite indie bookstore such as the Morton Arboretum Store and The Bookstore of Glen Ellyn, or online at bookshop.org and other book venues. Or, order now direct through Northwestern University Press and receive 25% off — use coupon code NUP2020 and see the information below. Thank you for supporting small presses and writers during this chaotic time.

Want more prairie while you are sheltering in place? Follow Cindy on Facebook, Twitter (@phrelanzer) and Instagram (@phrelanzer). Or enjoy some virtual trips to the prairie through reading Tallgrass Conversations: In Search of the Prairie Spirit and The Tallgrass Prairie: An Introduction.

The Art of Prairie Attention

“Paying attention: This is our endless and proper work.” — Mary Oliver

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The sun rises through the fog on the Schulenberg Prairie and Savanna.

Everywhere, spiders hang misted veils. The spiders are present every day on the prairie—no doubt—but usually, spider webs are invisible. Until, as the writer Richard Powers writes in The Overstory —they are “dew-betrayed.”

The spiders’ silk draperies, paired with the prairie’s autumn seed heads and dying leaves, coerced my attention for far longer on Monday morning than planned. My hike–which was supposed to be a doctor-mandated 30 minutes—was extended as I lingered. (Just five more minutes!) But how can you tear yourself away from a morning full of magic? One crystal web chandelier led to another….then another… .

After the hike, as I enjoyed my morning cup of Joe, I stumbled on a wonderful article from BrainPickings about the art of paying attention. It’s framed around Marla Popova’s review of “On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes” by Alexandra Horowitz. The gist of the book’s message is this: we can re-frame the ordinary by using different lenses to see what we usually miss. In the review, Popova recounts how Horowitz accomplishes “seeing” with new eyes by strolling through her city neighborhood with a visually impaired person,  a geologist, and her dog (to name just three lenses). Intrigued? Me too. Papova calls the book “breathlessly wonderful.” (It’s now on hold for me at the library.)

I’ve been thinking more these days about the art of paying attention, and what it means to see with new eyes. One lens I use is books. Others writers  prod me to understand and view my familiar places through different lenses. I learn from their words. Then, I “see” more completely.

After surgery seven weeks ago, the simple act of walking my favorite prairie paths is no longer something I take for granted. What follows are a few images from a morning walk in the fog this week. They are paired with  favorite quotes I think about often, and a few new quotes I gleaned from Popova’s review.

Read the quotes slowly. Reflect on what they say. Then, tuck these thoughts into your days ahead. I hope they speak to you as they have to me.

*****

“Attention without feeling is only a report.”–Mary Oliver

“Choice of attention—to pay attention to this and ignore that—is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer.” –W.H. Auden

“These days cry out, as never before, for us to pay attention.” — Anne Lamott

 

“How we spend our days, is of course, how we spend our lives.” — Annie Dillard

“…we humans generally do not bother paying attention to much other than the visual.” –Alexandra Horowitz

“For observing nature, the best pace is a snail’s pace.” — Edwin Way Teale

“To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday.” — John Burroughs

“The art of seeing has to be learned.” — Marguerite Duras

“Half of tracking is knowing where to look; the other half is looking.” — Susan Morse

“Joys come from simple and natural things; mist over meadows, sunlight on leaves, the path of the moon over water. Even rain and wind and stormy clouds bring joy.” — Sigurd F. Olson

“As we work to heal the land, the land heals us.”–Robin Wall Kimmerer

“The art of seeing might have to be learned, but it can never be unlearned, just as the seen itself can never be unseen—a realization at once immensely demanding in its immutability and endlessly liberating in the possibilities it invites.”– Maria Popova

“Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.” — Annie Dillard

“Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” –Simone Weil

“Only those items I notice shape my mind.” — William James

“The  thing you are doing now affects the thing you do next.” — Alexandra Horowitz

 

“For the mind disturbed, the still beauty of dawn is nature’s greatest balm.” — Edwin Way Teale

*****

It’s an imperfect world.

Life can be complicated.

But often, when I hike the prairie, I feel the magic happening. A sense of wonder. The world feels like a beautiful place again. A place where hope is—perhaps—not out of the question. A place where life is always in process.

Worth paying attention to.

***

Mary Oliver (1939-2019) was, as the poet Maxine Kumin wrote, “an indefatigable guide to the natural world.” Among her numerous awards were the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award.  Thanks to my wonderful husband Jeff, I was fortunate to hear her read and speak at Sanibel Island, Florida, for the Rachel Carson Lecture in 2014. Oliver died early this year at the age of 83.

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All photos copyright Cindy Crosby, taken at the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL unless noted otherwise: (Top to bottom)  fog over Willoway Brook; spiderwebs on asters (Symphyotrichum spp.), West Side prairie planting, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; tall coreopsis (Coreopsis tripteris) with spiderwebs, West Side prairie planting, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans); tall coreopsis (Coreopsis tripteris) with spiderwebs, West Side prairie planting, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) with spiderwebs; Willoway Brook in the fog; bottlebrush grass (Elymus hystrix), Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii); big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii); New England asters (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae); switchgrass (Panicum virgatum); unknown spider’s web; braided ladies tresses (Spiranthes cerneua); unknown spider building its web over Willoway Brook; cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum);  big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii); spiderwebs on tall coreopsis (Coreopsis tripteris); Hidden Lake Forest Preserve as fog is lifting, Forest Preserve District of DuPage County; Downer’s Grove, IL; unknown spider’s web; big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii); Schulenberg Prairie covered with dew; dawn over West Side prairie planting, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; broken spiderweb; spiderwebs on bur marigolds (Biden spp.), West Side prairie planting, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; unknown spider’s webs.

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Cindy’s forthcoming book is Chasing Dragonflies: A Natural, Cultural, and Personal History with Northwestern University Press (Summer, 2020), illustrated by Peggy Macnamara, artist-in-residence at The Field Museum in Chicago.

Join Cindy for “Nature Writing”, a blended online and in-person class, beginning online Wednesday, October 15! Details here.

Visit www.cindycrosby.com for more information on Cindy’s upcoming speaking and classes.