| The Symbolic World* By Nate Simons Overwhelmed! And overjoyed!Last Thursday evening just past the Spring equinox…when the days are as long as the night and the sunrises due east and sets due west, I was working late at the office. It was almost eight o’clock when I walked from the office into the hallway and noticed a beautiful and strange light coming from the gathering space across the hallway. I entered the gathering space where the crew and I predictably begin our days and was drawn by an orange glow into the sanctuary space next door. As I entered the space I was overwhelmed by the image I saw. The orange radiance was a shaft of light streaming through the westward glass doors of the pavilion in which the sanctuary resides. Seventy-five feet away and due east of the glass doors the setting sun beam blazed upon the focus of attention in the sanctuary space. There in the center of the stage and in direct axis and alignment with the equinoxal golden glow and the sanctuary arrangement was the Table. And there highlighted for me on the left side of the Table, the Bread…and on the right, the Pitcher and the Cup. I was overwhelmed! |
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| In that moment I experienced the overlap of Heaven…God’s space…and Earth…our space. I experienced what the Celtic Christians called “thin places.” These places and times are moments when we get to see what once was at the beginning of the world in Eden, when God settled into his good creation and lived with his people. These places and times are moments when we get to see Jesus, the Word who was with God in the beginning, and who was God, and the Word who became human and made his home among us for a while. And these places and times are moments when we get to see what will be again, when God will make all things new, will settle into his new heavens and new earth, and will make his home amongst us again…forever!The timing and symbolism of this event was quite interesting and deeply meaningful to me.Since 325 A.D. at the Council of Nicene, the Church Fathers agreed to celebrate Easter annually on the first Sunday after the first full moon after or on the Spring Equinox. The full moon in spring was the historical time for the Jewish celebration of Passover. To the Jewish folk, the Passover marked the event when God rescued them from slavery to the Egyptians. The night before the rescue, God told the Jewish folk to stay indoors, kill a lamb to share in a meal together. The blood of the lamb was to be painted on the house doorframe as a sign to the Angel of Death to pass over that house on its way to the destruction of the Egyptians. The meal was also to include a bitter herb salad and bread made without yeast. The yeast-less bread did not have time to rise and was to symbolize the haste with which the Jews were to leave the Egyptians in their escape to freedom.When Jesus came into the world announcing the good news that the Kingdom of God was upon us, the climax of his life was timed to correspond with the Passover celebration. He, a Jew by birth, had come to rescue his kin…and the entire world from the ultimate enemy and enslaver, Sin and Death. To be that rescuer, Jesus knew that he would become the lamb whose blood would cover the doorframe of our lives.On the night before he died, Jesus celebrated his last Passover meal with a group of his closest friends in a borrowed upstairs room. Reclining around a Table he spoke new meaning to some of the elements of the simple meal.He took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” After supper he took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you. (Luke 22:19-21)Jesus, the Word…the Logos …the origin, purpose, and goal of all things, who is himself God our Rescuer willingly died so that we, with all of creation, might be made right and would be in right relationship with him.Throughout the Story that God is telling, he has a habit of gathering with folks to eat a meal, a covenant meal, to be near us. In fact, in the last few chapters of the Story when God makes his home with us again, the Bible indicates that there will be a feast…a marriage feast around a grand banquet Table to celebrate the union of Heaven and Earth. And he will be there and we will be there. That evening last week Heaven and Earth overlapped and I got to be there for that banquet.I was overjoyed!*The Symbolic World is the name of a wonderful YouTube podcast authored by Jonathan Pageau, a French-Canadian Eastern Orthodox icon carver. If you are interested in learning how to see the reality behind the symbols manifest all around us, check this out. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtCTSf3UwRU14nYWr_xm-dQ |
| Reading the Landscape by Fred Wooley In the preface of Reading the Landscape, An Adventure in Ecology (The Macmillan Company, 1957) May Theilgaard Watts writes:“There is good reading on the land, first-hand reading, involving no symbols. The records are written in forests, in fencerows, in bogs, in playgrounds, in pastures, in gardens, in canyons, in tree rings. The records were made by sun and shade, by wind, rain, and fire, by time, and by animals. As we read what is written on the land, finding accounts of the past, predictions of the future, and comments on the present, we discover there are many interwoven strands to each story, offering several possible interpretations.”I think of this book often, the title, “Reading the Landscape,” when observing something about an area. The book’s preface is premise of many discoveries and discernments. We see something in nature and ask, “What happened here?… The elements at hand tell us a story, natural history for sure and often cultural history, how humans had a hand on the landscape.Late winter and early spring are good times to read the landscape. Last year’s vegetation dropped for the most part. Flowers, fruits, and leaves are down and if not already returned to earth in decay, they are flattened to the surface by months of rain and snow. The shape and structure, the bones of the land, stand out like a wet dog emerging from a pond. |
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| Hummocks in fen exposed by fire. March 28, 2024. |
| With shrubs and trees now leafless, views extend far into the distance. Topography stands out, low areas reveal water, pools and rivulets, creeks possibly, that are hidden by seasonal plant growth.On our 21 acres, stories abound. Mostly fallow, if not overgrown, when purchased 27 years ago, we could tell two-thirds were once actively farmed. Lines of black and sweet cherry, red cedar, and mulberry trees are straight and meet at 90-degree angles, telling of field boundaries. If the trees and shrubs are not enough, occasional posts and parts of farm fence, now rusted and partly in pieces, tell of the farmer’s work to separate fields of row crops and hay, keep livestock in pastures, and mark property boundaries.Something unique to this farm is a huge dug out bowl on the side of a hill. It is just beyond and between the house and the fen wetland below. It is an oblong bowl, the sides steep except for one end that opens onto a current trail. It is filled with trees, shrubs, and ground cover, species typical of disturbed areas, some non-native. |
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| Former gravel pit operation on oak wooded slope at the Fred Wooley Farm. March 28, 2024. |
| Scattared randomly throughout the depression is a collection of stones, many substantial in size. Across the trail from the bowl and down the wooded hillside to the fen, is a strewn layer of stones tennis to volleyball in size.Reading the landscape tells the story of an old gravel pit. There are many in this region taking advantage of the vast stores of till brought in and left behind when the last glaciers melted and receded 12 to 15 thousand years ago. Commercial gravel operations are vast in size, covering acres of land, carving into glacial kames and eskers. |
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| Stones exposed by prescribed fire on oak wooded slope at the Fred Wooley Farm. March 28, 2024. |
| Ours is divot by comparison. Blinking your eyes and opening to a time maybe one 75 to 100 years ago you can see the operation. The trail we use today was once a lane leading from the gravel pit. Trucks would park on it. The apparatus used to convey the glacial debris up and into a truck would allow the smaller sand or gravel to drop in and toss the larger rocks over the edge and tumbling down the hill. |
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| Prairie dropseed clumps highlighted by a prescribed fire conducted one month earlier. March 28, 2024 |
| While this time of year might be the best to read the landscapes, it vastly improves following fire. Prescribed burns eliminate the duff of last year’s growth. One day the hillside looks like any other covered in fallen sticks, limbs, and leaves, the day following fire a river of rock is revealed.Other stories are told as ashes wash away with rain. Fen hummocks pop into view showing decades and millennia of building soil through seasonal plant growth and decay.In native plantings around the house, knobs of prairie grass look like pin cushions, and I smile waiting for the fresh pins of this year’s grasses to emerge in spring rains. I smile at some in particular, knowing I planted those very plugs over the past decade. In a small way, I have added my signature to the land. It brings me comfort knowing decades from now, someone may read and think of my story on the landscape, though possibly never knowing the author. |
| View from the Crew by Josh Hall |
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| Baby turtle found in Spikerush Fen at Pigeon River Fish and Wildlife Area. |
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| Marsh marigold, the earliest flower to bloom in sunny wetlands. |
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| Freya crossing a stream at LaGrange County Park’s Cedar Lake Fen. |
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| Madeline crossing a stream in LaGrange County Park’s Cedar Lake Fen. |
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| John crossing a stream in LaGrange County Park’s Cedar Lake Fen. |
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| Freya protecting trees during a burn at the Bachelor property. |
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| The BHM Shop Prairie after the burn. |
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| A rabbit moved back into a prairie immediately after the burn. Kevin Lavery property in Hillsdale County, Michigan. |
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| Madi protecting the signs at St. Joseph County Parks’ Plumb Lake County Park near Sturgis, MI |
| Upcoming Events |
| Spring Ephemeral Flower Hike at LaTierra Saturday, April 13th from 2-4pm |
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| Join us for a search for spring wildflowers. Bring your walking stick, wildflower guide, and a desire to explore the wonders of an awakening landscape.From Fremont, travel east on SR 120. Turn right on Cope Rd/1000 E, (depending on your navigator) which is also the IN/MI state line. La Tierra is approximately 1/2 mile south on the west side of the road. A map is available here: https://goo.gl/maps/ZX8hd42LCRjbicHr7 |
Blue Heron Ministries 