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Three Summers of Drought...And No More !
Aug. 17th, 2024 04:42 pmGreetings, I have returned to the bit mines yet again for a summer situation report. It has been a while since I last wrote, and that’s a bit of a sore point for me, because I’d intended this blog to be a lot more active than it has been. Since 2023, my responsibilities have increased with illness in the family and its associated troubles, so I just haven’t had the time to devote to posting, even though I’d like to do so. Despite not wholly favorable trends in my life since last year, this year has so far been pleasant enough, with occasional troubles. The summer began with some troubles related to my mother’s health, resolved for now it seems, and I had a health scare of my own as well, albeit one that was treated with antibiotics and now seems resolved. But this disrupted the plans I had for the summer, not least of which was to increase my diligence in both studying and writing in my spare time. I got a bit derailed since then, by a mix of good old fashioned lack of discipline, distraction, having other things to do, and travel. But that can’t be an excuse forever. My occult practices have helped me understand that a significant challenge I face in this life is the learning of order, structure, rigor and perseverance, and I must endure in my pursuits even if I sometimes wander off the path.
The character of this year has been markedly different than the previous one, or indeed any of the ones before it, if the signs and omens coming to us from the natural world are any indication. This blog was conceived as a worldview through the eyes of a Neo-Hellenistic heathen, so if you know me, you know that judging from signs and omens is a key piece of that worldview. And it became clear that we are dealing with a very different cosmic weather almost from the beginning of the year, and this was reflected in the condition of the natural world (one tenant of occult studies being that the trends of the higher planes are reflected in the lower, and here in the material world we are in the denser and lower planes of existence). The Pacific Ocean had an historically unprecedented warm water anomaly, and in my neck of the woods this translated into an historically mild winter, with green grass growing in the lawn in January. There was but little snow until March, whereupon the trends began again to change. The later springtime was so similar to the weather of a decade ago, in 2014, that I began to speculate as to whether we would see a very different summer than the ones we had seen since 2021, with historic droughts and smoke from wildfires in the Western USA and Canada constantly blowing in like some fell breath from Hades.
It was not long before my speculations were confirmed by the facts. In May, it was quite rainy and humid. The other thing in May was the giant solar storm which cast aurora as far south as the southern United States, which was an unprecedented thing in my lifetime. So, too, was my travel with friends to see the solar eclipse south of Saint Louis, Missouri. There were quite a few firsts this year, and while personal they were things many people could have observed, but the total effect of this has been to indicate via signs from the heavens that something very large is taking place. The last time I saw so many aggregated omens of change was in 2019, only about half a year before the Covid era took the entire world by storm. The solar storms were repeated more than once since then, too. During a sojourn with relatives in the beautiful northern woodlands and lake country of Minnesota, we once again beheld northern lights coinciding with the peak of the Perseid meteor showers. There are many other parts of life in which the image of change as indicated by the omens might be seen as well. For example, we might point to recent court decisions which might prove epochal, or geopolitical trends which are heading for the explosive and dangerous. Perhaps 2024 will stand as a major inflection point in history, and we are only dimly aware of its first stirrings as I write this.
As expected, a drought failed to occur in the Upper Midwest. Instead, it has been a mild and rainy summer. While there has been some heat, and a lot of rain, the heat waves of recent years seem a distant memory by now, but that’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Indeed, it’s is not very welcome for an outdoorsman like myself. The heat and humidity has meant insects, and a lot of them. Now, I realize this is selfish, since an abundance of insects is much better for the ecosystem than a paucity of them, which we’ve had so many years running. But insects mean that a walk in the woods is an opportunity to be swarmed by mosquitoes, flies, gnats, and other harmful pests. There were more ticks this year than in a long time, and an encounter with a tick was the source of the aforementioned health scare that manifested around the 4th of July (making it necessary for me to cancel my plans to meet up with family around that time). Lyme disease is no joke, and neither are heavy duty antibiotics for gut health. With the swarming insects I have stayed out of the woods and walked on the prairie or on the roads this summer, and though I love summer I find myself thinking very often that when this summer is over, I probably will not lament. Though there’s still a bit more excitement before it is finished, as I am just getting ready to go on a tour with an old friend. More on that later, perhaps.
It’s a custom of this blog to comment on nature, as when I first began blogging, I was influenced by the nature writers of times past like Aldo Leopold, Sigurd Olson and Helen Hoover, among others. This year has not disappointed on that front. The big news is that they finally burned a portion of the prairie at the nature preserve not far from my house. This summer, the part that was burned had something remarkable happen. The big bluestem in that area grew up to be so tall that it became like walking through a corn maze, with areas around 7-9 feet tall. I had read, once upon a time, that big bluestem could reach heights of 12 feet but I had never seen such a thing and frankly never believed it. Until this year, that is. With the right conditions of abundant rain and the fire to keep a prairie from becoming woodland, it grows monstrously. Having said that, the prairie flowers that are usually so much in evidence were much more muted this year. They were there, but not in great numbers, nor did the raspberries and blackberries produce much of a crop. Already we are entering August, the season of the goldenrods, and even some asters, usually associated with the tail end of summer are coming up now. Clearly, the bizarre weather shifts of this year have had some effect on the local biota.
The circle of life goes on. The wildlife produced a lot of offspring this year. We had deer fawns and I see turkey pults around, already good-sized by now. We had quite a few new regulars at the feeders, such as a scarlet tanager. But I’ve had to be quite religious about bringing in the feeders at night, something I never did before, because there have been bears in the area, and they tore down the feeders while we were out of town for a funeral in May. In not too long, the summer will be over, and the autumnal migration will begin, and a whole new chapter will then dawn. In the rock garden, native prairie plants have begun to colonize, even though they were kept out by the tireless efforts of the previous owner who was an obsessive gardener and loved to plant colorful perennials. But I can’t bring myself to remove them; they’re a part of the tapestry of the land and they’re adapted to these climes and represent what the land really wants to be. So I won’t touch them. The acorns have begun to fall from the trees and perhaps that’s the one thing about this year that’s like last year, when there were so many acorns on the ground that the squirrels could not eat them all. No doubt there’s plenty more I could write about on the nature front but time is running short and soon I must conclude this entry.
It’s a year in which a lot of things are in flux, in the wider world, as well as in my own life. The changes that began in 2016 have never slowed down. However, I have tried to cultivate a mental state of detachment because there has been a lot of ugliness in recent years and that’s not an egregore I want to get pulled into, though it can be hard to resist in an age of ubiquitous propaganda. Perhaps that’s why I take the time to write these missives, that I can induce in myself a state of reflection and contemplation and step out of the stream of time if only for a moment. In an age when frantic activity is the norm, it becomes fitting and even necessary to pause and take stock. Well, I’ve laid down some burdens for now, and with all luck I’ll be back soon to do it again. Until then, peace.
The character of this year has been markedly different than the previous one, or indeed any of the ones before it, if the signs and omens coming to us from the natural world are any indication. This blog was conceived as a worldview through the eyes of a Neo-Hellenistic heathen, so if you know me, you know that judging from signs and omens is a key piece of that worldview. And it became clear that we are dealing with a very different cosmic weather almost from the beginning of the year, and this was reflected in the condition of the natural world (one tenant of occult studies being that the trends of the higher planes are reflected in the lower, and here in the material world we are in the denser and lower planes of existence). The Pacific Ocean had an historically unprecedented warm water anomaly, and in my neck of the woods this translated into an historically mild winter, with green grass growing in the lawn in January. There was but little snow until March, whereupon the trends began again to change. The later springtime was so similar to the weather of a decade ago, in 2014, that I began to speculate as to whether we would see a very different summer than the ones we had seen since 2021, with historic droughts and smoke from wildfires in the Western USA and Canada constantly blowing in like some fell breath from Hades.
It was not long before my speculations were confirmed by the facts. In May, it was quite rainy and humid. The other thing in May was the giant solar storm which cast aurora as far south as the southern United States, which was an unprecedented thing in my lifetime. So, too, was my travel with friends to see the solar eclipse south of Saint Louis, Missouri. There were quite a few firsts this year, and while personal they were things many people could have observed, but the total effect of this has been to indicate via signs from the heavens that something very large is taking place. The last time I saw so many aggregated omens of change was in 2019, only about half a year before the Covid era took the entire world by storm. The solar storms were repeated more than once since then, too. During a sojourn with relatives in the beautiful northern woodlands and lake country of Minnesota, we once again beheld northern lights coinciding with the peak of the Perseid meteor showers. There are many other parts of life in which the image of change as indicated by the omens might be seen as well. For example, we might point to recent court decisions which might prove epochal, or geopolitical trends which are heading for the explosive and dangerous. Perhaps 2024 will stand as a major inflection point in history, and we are only dimly aware of its first stirrings as I write this.
As expected, a drought failed to occur in the Upper Midwest. Instead, it has been a mild and rainy summer. While there has been some heat, and a lot of rain, the heat waves of recent years seem a distant memory by now, but that’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Indeed, it’s is not very welcome for an outdoorsman like myself. The heat and humidity has meant insects, and a lot of them. Now, I realize this is selfish, since an abundance of insects is much better for the ecosystem than a paucity of them, which we’ve had so many years running. But insects mean that a walk in the woods is an opportunity to be swarmed by mosquitoes, flies, gnats, and other harmful pests. There were more ticks this year than in a long time, and an encounter with a tick was the source of the aforementioned health scare that manifested around the 4th of July (making it necessary for me to cancel my plans to meet up with family around that time). Lyme disease is no joke, and neither are heavy duty antibiotics for gut health. With the swarming insects I have stayed out of the woods and walked on the prairie or on the roads this summer, and though I love summer I find myself thinking very often that when this summer is over, I probably will not lament. Though there’s still a bit more excitement before it is finished, as I am just getting ready to go on a tour with an old friend. More on that later, perhaps.
It’s a custom of this blog to comment on nature, as when I first began blogging, I was influenced by the nature writers of times past like Aldo Leopold, Sigurd Olson and Helen Hoover, among others. This year has not disappointed on that front. The big news is that they finally burned a portion of the prairie at the nature preserve not far from my house. This summer, the part that was burned had something remarkable happen. The big bluestem in that area grew up to be so tall that it became like walking through a corn maze, with areas around 7-9 feet tall. I had read, once upon a time, that big bluestem could reach heights of 12 feet but I had never seen such a thing and frankly never believed it. Until this year, that is. With the right conditions of abundant rain and the fire to keep a prairie from becoming woodland, it grows monstrously. Having said that, the prairie flowers that are usually so much in evidence were much more muted this year. They were there, but not in great numbers, nor did the raspberries and blackberries produce much of a crop. Already we are entering August, the season of the goldenrods, and even some asters, usually associated with the tail end of summer are coming up now. Clearly, the bizarre weather shifts of this year have had some effect on the local biota.
The circle of life goes on. The wildlife produced a lot of offspring this year. We had deer fawns and I see turkey pults around, already good-sized by now. We had quite a few new regulars at the feeders, such as a scarlet tanager. But I’ve had to be quite religious about bringing in the feeders at night, something I never did before, because there have been bears in the area, and they tore down the feeders while we were out of town for a funeral in May. In not too long, the summer will be over, and the autumnal migration will begin, and a whole new chapter will then dawn. In the rock garden, native prairie plants have begun to colonize, even though they were kept out by the tireless efforts of the previous owner who was an obsessive gardener and loved to plant colorful perennials. But I can’t bring myself to remove them; they’re a part of the tapestry of the land and they’re adapted to these climes and represent what the land really wants to be. So I won’t touch them. The acorns have begun to fall from the trees and perhaps that’s the one thing about this year that’s like last year, when there were so many acorns on the ground that the squirrels could not eat them all. No doubt there’s plenty more I could write about on the nature front but time is running short and soon I must conclude this entry.
It’s a year in which a lot of things are in flux, in the wider world, as well as in my own life. The changes that began in 2016 have never slowed down. However, I have tried to cultivate a mental state of detachment because there has been a lot of ugliness in recent years and that’s not an egregore I want to get pulled into, though it can be hard to resist in an age of ubiquitous propaganda. Perhaps that’s why I take the time to write these missives, that I can induce in myself a state of reflection and contemplation and step out of the stream of time if only for a moment. In an age when frantic activity is the norm, it becomes fitting and even necessary to pause and take stock. Well, I’ve laid down some burdens for now, and with all luck I’ll be back soon to do it again. Until then, peace.
