Science and Religion

Predictably, it is pouring rain this weekend.  No fun for the trick-or-treaters, and it means I can't get out into the garden to finish putting it to bed for the season.


The Pacific Northwest maritime climate is usually mild enough that winter gardening is worth doing.  (This year the predictions say that may not be the case, but in general, cold-hardy vegetables do well here year-round.)  I, however, follow the old Celtic tradition and stop my harvesting at Samhain, leaving the garden to rest until Yule. Celtic folklore variously says that food left in the fields after Samhain is for the Faeries/fair folk/Old Ones, or that malevolent spirits will spoil the food so there's no point in trying to eat anything harvested after that.  But from a practical standpoint, leaving something behind in the fields to decompose through the winter is pretty good agricultural practice, since the composting vegetation will nourish the soil.   Samhain is a time to listen for messages from our ancestors and those who have gone before.  Sometimes, those messages are embedded in the cultural traditions handed down to us.


Consider a pre-scientific world in which people live or die by the annual harvest and pass along successful growing strategies by oral tradition.  If farmer Angus picks his fields clean before Samhain, his crops might not do so well next season.  Farmer Iain, on the other hand, leaves some of his plants in the ground, maybe even with a little fruit still on them, and plows it all under in the early spring as he prepares to plant.  He gets a bumper crop.  The obvious explanation is that Farmer Iain found favor with the Fairies by leaving them ample food at years' end the previous year, while stingy farmer Angus was cursed for his miserliness!  Now, we can justify this superstitious folk practice with a scientific understanding of how soil amendments improve crop yields.  I would offer that many "superstitious folk practices" have similar origins and purposes.  Just because our ancestors didn't use the scientific method doesn't mean they didn't observe patterns and document them.


The first salmon ceremony widely practiced by northwest indigenous peoples is an elegant example of this.  Salmon is the foundation of diet and culture for most local indigenous groups, and archeological evidence suggests that even in this incredibly dynamic ecosystem, salmon was a consistent, abundant resource for more than 2,000 years.  In this ceremony, the first salmon caught in the season is cooked and shared with all the members of the community, and the remains are then returned to the river. Two critical actions, direct and symbolic: sharing the salmon by everyone having the symbolic taste shows everyone that salmon is a valuable resource to be shared and stewarded, and that sharing it strengthens the community. Further, Western Science has finally figured out the value of returing salmon carcasses to the river--they provide food for the invertebrate species that form the base of the freshwater food web and in turn feed the baby salmon the following year. 


This ceremony embodies the cultural/environmental wisdom that informs cultural practice: Salish people knew that the salmon skin and bones must be treated in a particular way, which involved returning those nutrients to the natural system from which they came. No salmon remains were burned; that was considered taboo. It was an insult to the Salmon People, who would withhold their bounty if so treated. As it  happens, where salmon carcasses are not returned to the stream, the salmon population declines. These ceremonies were more than entreating the powers of nature to be kind and provide well, as superstitious folk practices are often portrayed.  On the contrary,  they actually helped the ecosystem.


Some folks might look at me askance when I tell them I won't harvest the last squash and kale in my garden because I'm leaving it for the Fairies (in the form of myriad decomposers),  or they might consider the First Salmon Ceremony as it is practiced today quaint relic from native cultures.  I think there is probably a lot more value in many of the traditions and practices passed down to us by our ancestors than we might find at first glance.  Something to consider as we listen for their messages this season, in a world where traditional practices are disappearing on a daily basis.  Blessed Samhain.

Bird Party

Blustery weather has made sighting conditions challenging in recent days, but today the rain is light and the waters calm.  Today will be mostly a day of indoor domestic tasks, so it's fortunate that the window over the kitchen sink affords a fantastic view of central Puget Sound, some islands, the Kitsap Peninsula, and, gods willing, the Olympic Mountains. No mountains today, though.

This morning has been good for sightings so far.  No SRKW, who so far are spending most of their time farther north in Admiralty Inlet this fall, but lots of birds, and I was lucky enough to spot a pair of Dall's porpoises (also called "broken back" or "spray" porpoises) cruising south at one point.  Flat water is ideal for spotting porpoises, whose dorsal fins are so small that they are easily hidden by any chop.

I haven't yet determined why, but there is Something about the water just offshore, framed by the kitchen window, that is very attractive to a lot of waterfowl.  That particular spot is currently gathering a small flock of horned grebes and another of surf scoters, beyond which I also spotted a Pacific loon earlier.  There's a bufflehead and a few common mergansers in the mix out there today too.  Rounding out the view as I gazed over the water this morning, a bald eagle flew over the waterfowl, who did not seem appropriately nervous given that the local eagles actively hunt the migratory brants that will be gathering here over the next few months.  Maybe those birds out there today know that the salmon will keep the eagles busy for a while.

Sightings

The weather guessers are predicting that the long clear spell we've been enjoying will be ending this weekend, so the toddler and I took advantage of the nice day with a quick trip to the beach.

Heading out the door we received a barrage of criticism from the male Anna's hummingbird who is aggressively defending his winter territory from others in the neighborhood.  The squeaky-hinge call of these birds is everywhere when you know what you're hearing, even if the birds themselves are so tiny and fast that you don't always see them.  Even knowing our resident Mr. Anna's is perched in his usual lookout at the top of the red elder tree next to the front porch, it can be tough to spot him.  We feed any hummers who make it to our kitchen window feeder throughout the winter and well into spring.  The Anna's have been overwintering here in the Puget Sound basin for at least fifteen years now, although historically their overwintering habitat range didn't extend this far north.  Climate change, or some other factor in the environment?

At the beach we spotted a cormorant fishing just offshore, but still too far out to determine exactly what kind it was. (Someday I'll learn to bring my binoculars with me everywhere I go!)  The toddler is currently obsessed with water in all its forms, and made a staggering bee line across the bands of seaweed covering the cobbles to get to the waves.  Keeping her from a full-body experience with Puget Sound diverted a lot of concentration from my usual fin search, but it was great fun watching her exploring the shoreline with both hands and no apparent concern for the cold water.  The tide wasn't out too far, but far enough to find a purple shore crab under a rock near the water's edge.  The toddler isn't quite old enough yet to be as fascinated with non-mammalian life forms as I am, but she gave it more than a passing glance before I carefully replaced the rock.

Our walk ended with a quick spin through a grassy lawn area in a nearby park, where we spotted an invasive eastern gray squirrel rooting among the fallen sweet chestnuts (also non-native) and checked out the lichens growing on the bark of an oak tree.  I suspect this particular tree is a Garry oak or Oregon White Oak given the timing of its spring leafing and autumn colors, but I'm not sure.  It certainly doesn't follow the same habits as the non-native oaks planted nearby.

Later in the day I learned that the SRKW spent the day in Admiralty Inlet.  Maybe the coming rains will lure them further south after the local coho runs.

Seeing the Forest for the Fins

A clear October day is a gift in the Salish Sea, one that pulls people out of their houses and into the brisk air, the sun and the wind.  The stable high-pressure weather systems that bring these lovely clear days usually also bring with them winds from the north, teasing with a hint of colder days to come as we enjoy the fleeting sun, and reminding those who know of the Duwamish legend of the battling winds.  The days here are short enough now that we savor sunlight, ignoring sunscreen to eke out whatever little vitamin D content we can, feeling the warmth on our faces that feels nurturing in the face of the long winter ahead.

With luck, walking the shores of central Puget Sound will grant other gifts:  here a baby harbor seal, newly weaned and just striking out on her own, is hauled out on the cobbles on the lee side of a point.  There a small flock of harlequin ducks rides on the rippling water.  And in the distance, the supreme gift:  the three pods of southern resident killer whales who call the Salish Sea their home, following the late fall salmon runs through Admiralty Inlet as far south as Point Defiance, entrancing those lucky enough to see their tall fins parting the water, their gleaming black and white bodies leaping clear of the waves and crashing back down again.

They are here to eat salmon, adult salmon who gather in the estuaries and wait for the rains to call them upstream, where the whales will not follow.  The salmon will fight the current, swim through a toxic soup of stormwater runoff from streets, yards, and rooftops, struggle past dams, and search silted streambeds for a patch of gravel where they can lay their eggs before they give up and give their bodies back to the water that bore them.  Their bodies are eaten by creatures of every size and type; microscopic decomposers who in turn feed the insects that the newly-hatched baby salmon will seek for food the following year, and terrestrial vertebrates--raccoons, otters, coyotes, eagles, others--who will drag their bodies out of the streambeds, or pass their post-salmon-eating waste in the surrounding forests, nourishing the soaring fir and cedar trees with nutrients from the deep oceans.

The trees grow tall and strong, shading the rivers, keeping the streams cool and fresh with oxygen, so the salmon eggs live, grow, and hatch.  The baby salmon make their way downstream, eating the insects that fed upon their parents' bodies, down to the eelgrass meadows that sway beneath the waves in the shallow estuaries, down to the graveled shorelines where the sand lance and surf smelt spawn, down to the salt water where they can feed and grow large, down to the Salish Sea where the orcas wait for them.  Every piece of this ecological web fits together neatly, supporting the SRKW population who, unlike other orca populations around the world, prefers salmon as their primary food.  

Of course, over the years the web has been stretched and damaged as humans try to find their place within it, often not aware that we are a critical part of it ourselves.  The magic of the Salish Sea is that it is, still, a functioning ecosystem in many ways.  The system described above does still work, more or less.  In recent years, more human effort has been made to protect and restore some of the habitats critical to the salmon, and therefore to the orcas, and this year the salmon are returning to some local rivers in unprecedented high numbers.

Growing up on the shores of the Salish Sea, watching the seasons change and the simple miracles of seeds growing, migrations happening, the tide answering the moon and the leaves answering the sun, even as I learned the science of these things I learned the magic of them too.  As an environmental educator, a naturalist, a mother, a priestess,  a homemaker, and a person yearning for reason, compassion, justice, and equality to prevail in the world, this magic sustains me, informs me, inspires me.  

The web of life that surrounds me here is also a metaphor for the wider world.  All things are connected; acting on one, we act on all.  The connections might not be obvious, but the changes become obvious the closer we look.  Does it seem like a stretch?  Stick with me, hopefully I'll make it clear here, with honor and humility, reverence and mirth.