IT IS A BEAUTIFUL winter morning at the Church O’ The Pines
IT IS A BEAUTIFUL winter morning at the Church O’ The Pines. Usually I post morning pictures, and today is a fine one, but this photo is from last night at sunset over the Mississippi. Out walking on the river. The Great Horned Owls were hooting, their deep, chesty challenge echoing through the woods. The sky seemed to signal clearing, better days ahead, better, more civilized days for the state of Minnesota. We like civilization here in the piney woods, but it seems to mean something different to us than it does to the keepers of religious purity, ‘safety and security’ now occupying the nation’s executive offices. It has more to do with seeing and hearing the sacred within and around one another. In a sunset perhaps. In the aspiring growth of a tall pine. In the hooting of an owl.
This morning it is the woodpeckers who provide the soundscape. They are drumming loudly and persistently, all over the woods. This drumming is a means of communication. Simple ‘pecking’ suffices in the search for food under the bark of trees. But for drumming, a special tree must be chosen, in order for the sound to echo and carry. Which it does! Sometimes they will choose the aluminum siding of a house, or an old-fashioned TV antenna. But here in the woods,a tall old pine seems to do just fine. What are our little friends–the Downy, the Hairy, the Red-bellied and the Pileated Woodpeckers communicating? Well, the experts say it’s about marking territory–this is MINE, stay out! Or advertising for a mate. I’m sure that’s true. But this morning–this glorious, 40 degree, blue-sky morning by the Mississippi; with our state beginning to breathe again, and civilization hopefully returning from the clutches of barbarism–well, personally, I just think they’re happy.
It’s a good day to be a woodpecker. It’s a good day to be a Minnesotan. It’s a good day at the Church O’ The Pines. And we wish you Good sabbath!