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The Gathering Of The Clans

Children Of The River — Hello friends! Tonight’s feature image is titled “The Time Keepers” and is available for purchase by the instructions at the bottom of the article.

Tonight’s post is of course fictional. I have borrowed from bits and pieces of multiple ancient cultures to create a story just for the entertainment. To the best of my knowledge no such culture ever actually existed. But, it could have.

I have an affinity for earthworks and megalithic structures. There’s just something that fires the imagination where the arcane past is concerned.

In my mind’s eye I can see a mist covered plane with primitive huts built from Mastodon bones and tall grasses. A thin wisp of smoke rising from a central fire. The huts are arranged in a wheel pattern. Each spoke of the wheel contains a hut near the hub with a primitive flag made of corse fiber. These are the dwellings of the chieftains. The patriarchs of this society have called a gathering. They are here ceremoniously to unite the clans into one nation. Their sons stand guard and the eldest is the chief’s escort as the ceremony begins. The people if clans sit silently in doorways of their huts waiting for the signal that an agreement has been reached. The Chieftains’ negotiations are mostly ritual as they sit around the stone slab while they are served bread and wine that was blended from a small portion of each clans supplies. By partaking in the meal each chieftain signifies his agreement to the gathering. As soon as the meal has ended each chieftain stands and faces his people while blowing the same note on a horn. At the sound of the horns the people cheer and the gathering has officially begun. For the next season of the moon there will be open trade between the clans. In some casses there will marriages between them. The clans are spread out across the land most of the time and this is opportunity to obtain fine quality resources that are not abundant in the home region. The gathering is so successful that it becomes tradition and that original stone table where it all began is memorialized in a stone circle.

Not far from my home there are ancient stone works and the property my father grew up on had a stone staircase that was covered with petroglyphs. They are silent witnesses to ages that are lost to history. Occasionally we find a stone arrowhead or a celt ( Stone axe ) in a creek or a field and suddenly we’re touching something that connects us to lives we can only imagine.

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The Richness Of An Appalachian Morning

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Hello friends! Tonight’s feature image is titled “Pipevine Swallowtail And Moonflower” and is available for purchase by the instructions at the bottom of the article.

Softly floating from place to place the butterfly explores each bloom searching for the one that has the sweetest rewards. The late summer brings the Moonflower and every little twig becomes a bloom. Off in the distance a Ruby Throated Hummingbird darts skillfully through the underbrush as he carries out the same quest. I turned around to focus but he eludes my lens with ease and disappears back into the forest. The crow in top branches of a snag finds this amusing and cackles in a mocking tone. Bumblebees fly in lazy S shaped patterns and crawl into the last of Pale Jewelweed that dangles from dew kissed leaves. They shake the plant as they dig their way into bloom and send a cascade of droplets to forest floor.

Life is a series of moments that are welded together in experience. The more experiences you have, the richer life is.

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Connecting The Circles

black and white photography

Hello friends! Tonight’s feature image is titled “Gauley Bridge In Onyx” and is available for purchase by the instructions at the bottom of the article.

My big blue truck rolls to a stop at the three rivers. A soft breeze flows down the mountain and gently shakes the leaves. A deep slow breath released me from the day’s cares as I listen to the birds chattering in the undergrowth. Bridges symbolize transition making them perfect spots to shift attitude away from the corporate culture and back into real life. If I’m still enough I can pick out the individual birds and hear the rivers gently lapping at the rocks on shore. I close my eyes and I can feel the direction of the sun on my skin. Up on the mountain the birds fall silent as a buck strolls through browsing the leaves. A crow gives three quick caws behind my as he flies through to alert the others of my presence in the empty parking lot. The world is made of concentric circles and they all connect if you can just push back the noise and let them speak to you. It only takes a few minutes to regain my center and clear away the mental clutter. I climb back up into my big blue truck and head home with a renewed sense of peace.

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A Beautiful Killer

Color Photography

Beautiful Kills — Hello friends! Tonight’s feature image is titled Beauty Kills” and is available for purchase by following the instructions at the bottom of the article.

The last days of summer slipped into the past so quickly. One day I was excited to see the green buds forming on bare branches and the next thing I knew the leaves were dropping on my lawn. It was only a few weeks ago that I spotted the tall stalks and bright purple flower spikes of purple loosestrife. The beauty of the flowers against the deep blue sky was soothing indeed. After such a fast paced day I needed a few moments to enjoy the empty space near the railroad. The lore associated with loosestrife is that it’s presence bring peace. I have to admit that I did feel more at ease while I took the picture. The problem is that loosestrife is an invasive species that’s able to crowed out even cattail. What’s more is that it doesn’t really have food value for North American wildlife and cattail does. That’s how it got the nickname of “The Beautiful Killer”. In spite of the wonderful colors and texture that the loosestrife provides it pushes out the native food species.

I believe that there’s a life lesson here. Loosestrife was brought to the New World as an ornamental plant. And there’s no denying that it is beautiful. But it has no natural enemies in North America and it speeads unchallenged outside of the garden. All of this happened in the Victorian Era when nobody would have thought about the consequences. The lesson of course is that just because something is beautiful doesn’t mean that it should be desired.

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Forage Friday #27 Tule

Color Photography, Forage Friday

Hello friends!Tonight’s feature image is titled “Tule 82019”. All of the photos are my original work and are available as prints by following the instructions at the bottom of the article. Tonight’s photo was taken specifically for this article.

One of the first survival plants that I learned about was Tule. When I was a kid we always called it Bullrush and I had visions of baby Moses floating around the Nile river in a basket made from Tule. And with good reason, Tule has a history of being used to make rafts and the ropes that bind them together. Native Americans from all over the New World used Tule to make nets, duck decoys, rafts, twine and and just about anything that you can imagine. Even today it’s used to cane seats. The name Tule covers a lot species in the same genera and there’s some minor differences between them but to the best of my knowledge they all have the same properties and the same general look. Tule is often planted near water features in the south and there it is huge. I have seen that type gst to be somewhere in the neighborhood of eight feet tall with a thick base. Where as our local variety maxes out at about six feet tall and remains slender. Most often I see it less than four feet tall. All of Tule that I’ve encountered has a similar seed cluster at the top and it’s always found close to water.

It’s also a food source of course and hence it’s inclusion in a Forage Friday post. According to the Paiute tribe Tule is the food of giants! If you’re a fan of the arcane then you’re probably already aware of the Si-Te-Cah. The Paiute name for a race of red haired giants translates into “The Tule Eaters”. The legend also says they were cannibals but we can look at that topic some other day. The point is that Tule was an important enough part of Native American Culture that it made it into their mythology. From what I’ve read they used the whole plant. Seeds were used for grain. The young shoots are a cooked green. The base of the stem is a vegetable and the roots were boiled and mashed like potatoes. The mashed roots could also be processed into sugar. The process is similar to making molasses. The root starch and pollen is made into flour.

Aside from food uses it’s also mentioned that the stems were used to treat abscesses and snake bites. ( presented as historical reference only. If you’re bitten by a venomous snake please seek a medical professional!)

Plants like Tule are considered to be nothing more than a weed today. But in the days before big agribusiness they were the main food source.

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