It is spring here, and the alewives are running from the ocean to the inland ponds to spawn. They mass at the mouths of freshwater streams and leap their way upstream, from pool to pool, to reach the inland waters where they were hatched, where they will lay and fertilize their eggs to create the next generation.
Dr R, here, in pictures and print , is proof of why I say you are fluent in the language of hope. The alewives are completely new to me, but now my heart mascot. They do not fester about whether others will join them. Or whether cormorants will decide to be nice. They do what must be done. With all they’ve got! That’s it.
You help us see and understand the world we live in, and keep swimming. Thank you every day. Thank you.
This is worth cheering! I’ve been w you all for weeks of required reading, but so disheartened. The alewives are running and my flowers are blooming and this too lifts my heart and hopes for essential goodness and well-being for all to overcome the desperate actions of lost souls bent on self-aggrandizing acts of destruction.
I will not give these thoughts more space. My heart is with the fish and the flowers. A new spring is here. To celebrate. To renew. Be well. Be strong and loving.
Nature is our greatest teacher. The primordial urge to re-create causes this churning mass of fish to school from pool to pool, because alone they likely wouldn’t make it.
Cooperatively they swim and jump and grind their way to do what their parents did: find a safe, nurturing, appropriate place to birth the next generation.
What can we learn from these fish?
It’s worth dying for to make things right for the next generation.
It’s being in community that we’ll most likely survive to create a place for the next generation. Together we thrive.
I love what John Meacham said in his Super Soul interview with Oprah Winfrey recently. He talked about what church historian St. Augustine said about what makes a nation:
A nation is a community of beings United by the commonness of their love.” So what we all love could unite us.
These fish love the promise of creating the next generation in waters safer, in an environment whew they have the best chance of survival.
We owe our children the same opportunity.
No less.
See PACEsconnetion.com to learn more about how making the first years of a child’s life safe, stable, and nurturing will help that child’s brain develop in the best way possible.
As a nation we have got to support the parents in providing for their children.
We’ve punished single mothers to the breaking point. Their innocent children are paying the price in prison, morgues, foster care.
Thanks for sharing lessons learned from the fish. We’d do well to protect our fry in like fashion.
Yes, they are incredible and so are you!!! I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your column. It provides me with the opportunity to learn something new every time I read what you have to say whether it ve current events or science t or whatever else you decide to write about. Your topics are so varied that to have the opportunity to read about and learn something new about a myriad of topics, including FISH is one of the highlights of my day or evening, depending, and I am not kidding!
Thank you, Heather, you are brilliant. I wish you were my next door neighbor, but I will settle for your letters.
There are many amazing cycles, and alewives are surely one of them. It is bittersweet, because, for instance, while a section of Cambridge, Massachusetts, has many locales with "Alewife" as part of their names, alewives are no longer there, their habitats crushed by development and human encroaching.
Still, there are many hardy species. I do mosses, now in retirement, and am studying them pretty seriously. But they can also be beautiful.
I love hearing about and seeing the alewives! Growing up in Chicago in the 50’s and 60’s, on summer days my mom would take the three of us to the beach (Lake Michigan) several days a week. There were always so many alewives in the water and I felt very brave for being there with them slithering all around our little legs!
Thanks for an incredible run…. And thanks for transporting me back to Howard St. Beach! I can taste my peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a dash of sand! Aa good as ever! Sweet dreams all!
This reminds me of the time my dissertation adviser took a group of us to see a bat out flight from a cave in New Mexico. The bats leave en masse, and it's a spectacle. But like you with the alewives, I was completely unprepared for the actual sight. River upon River of bats pouring out of the cave with a sound like helicopters, staying bunched together like starlings while the hawks tried (and, more often than not, failed) to pick them off. I'm glad you had time with the alewives. I miss the bats.
Lovely conversation. As an original "back-to-the-land" hippie from the 60s, I was amazed (and the college-educated part of me was a bit ashamed) to realize that I'd never properly appreciated the cycle of all those anadromous species which journey back up into mountains with the nutrients they've gathered in the oceans as being nature's nutrient pump, cycling vast stores from one bioregion to another. What a wonder it all is! I never knew about sea silk until a few weeks ago, either: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Sea_silk
Beautiful spring evening. My rhododendrons are in full bloom. Figs on my fig tree. Moss on the rocks and some on the concrete path (even some on the roof where I prefer they weren’t). Dinner with friends on the deck overlooking the garden. Lots of laughter heightened by Prosecco. Used pliers to pull the cork! Talked about Heather’s letters. Lovely Saturday evening.
Yes, Nature IS amazing. In spite of all the crap going on, solace can ALWAYS be found in some aspect of Nature. Kings and kingdoms pass away into dust, but Nature always remains. It is eternal. We aren't.
Sometimes it’s good to be a human being, not a human doing:
“Every once in a while, I’ll go outside and catch my goats just standing there, staring at a wall or fence. They could be facing any direction in their enclosure or doing any number of things but instead they’re just head first at big blank nothing, chewing like it’s totally normal. Are they stupid or something? It occurred to me recently that they aren’t actually doing nothing. They’re being goats. They’re not supposed to do anything but be alive. Standing there is their job. It’s their purpose.
“Follow that old joke: Don’t just do something. Stand there!”
Dr R, here, in pictures and print , is proof of why I say you are fluent in the language of hope. The alewives are completely new to me, but now my heart mascot. They do not fester about whether others will join them. Or whether cormorants will decide to be nice. They do what must be done. With all they’ve got! That’s it.
You help us see and understand the world we live in, and keep swimming. Thank you every day. Thank you.
This is worth cheering! I’ve been w you all for weeks of required reading, but so disheartened. The alewives are running and my flowers are blooming and this too lifts my heart and hopes for essential goodness and well-being for all to overcome the desperate actions of lost souls bent on self-aggrandizing acts of destruction.
I will not give these thoughts more space. My heart is with the fish and the flowers. A new spring is here. To celebrate. To renew. Be well. Be strong and loving.
I just love you.
Thank you for sharing.
Nature is our greatest teacher. The primordial urge to re-create causes this churning mass of fish to school from pool to pool, because alone they likely wouldn’t make it.
Cooperatively they swim and jump and grind their way to do what their parents did: find a safe, nurturing, appropriate place to birth the next generation.
What can we learn from these fish?
It’s worth dying for to make things right for the next generation.
It’s being in community that we’ll most likely survive to create a place for the next generation. Together we thrive.
I love what John Meacham said in his Super Soul interview with Oprah Winfrey recently. He talked about what church historian St. Augustine said about what makes a nation:
A nation is a community of beings United by the commonness of their love.” So what we all love could unite us.
These fish love the promise of creating the next generation in waters safer, in an environment whew they have the best chance of survival.
We owe our children the same opportunity.
No less.
See PACEsconnetion.com to learn more about how making the first years of a child’s life safe, stable, and nurturing will help that child’s brain develop in the best way possible.
As a nation we have got to support the parents in providing for their children.
We’ve punished single mothers to the breaking point. Their innocent children are paying the price in prison, morgues, foster care.
Thanks for sharing lessons learned from the fish. We’d do well to protect our fry in like fashion.
Carey Sipp
Yes, they are incredible and so are you!!! I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your column. It provides me with the opportunity to learn something new every time I read what you have to say whether it ve current events or science t or whatever else you decide to write about. Your topics are so varied that to have the opportunity to read about and learn something new about a myriad of topics, including FISH is one of the highlights of my day or evening, depending, and I am not kidding!
Thank you, Heather, you are brilliant. I wish you were my next door neighbor, but I will settle for your letters.
Nina Snegg
“… spending the day with alewives rather than politicians.”
An immensely sane choice, Professor Richardson.
“Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled --
to cast aside the weight of facts
and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.”
Excerpt from “The Ponds” by Mary Oliver
There are many amazing cycles, and alewives are surely one of them. It is bittersweet, because, for instance, while a section of Cambridge, Massachusetts, has many locales with "Alewife" as part of their names, alewives are no longer there, their habitats crushed by development and human encroaching.
Still, there are many hardy species. I do mosses, now in retirement, and am studying them pretty seriously. But they can also be beautiful.
https://user.fm/files/v2-229612b6837a9d7a80b7ddc4ab085083/M1141711.JPG
https://user.fm/files/v2-981af0a1f7f26d072748981c554637b7/M1342205.JPG
https://user.fm/files/v2-5a2f248db852ae962706b2d626c451cc/M1402299.JPG
https://user.fm/files/v2-e408650794122bbb1fc5b5e7a2af0e45/M1402303.JPG
I love you and your alewives. As John Muir said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”
Congratulations on crossing the finish line!
I love hearing about and seeing the alewives! Growing up in Chicago in the 50’s and 60’s, on summer days my mom would take the three of us to the beach (Lake Michigan) several days a week. There were always so many alewives in the water and I felt very brave for being there with them slithering all around our little legs!
Thanks for an incredible run…. And thanks for transporting me back to Howard St. Beach! I can taste my peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a dash of sand! Aa good as ever! Sweet dreams all!
This reminds me of the time my dissertation adviser took a group of us to see a bat out flight from a cave in New Mexico. The bats leave en masse, and it's a spectacle. But like you with the alewives, I was completely unprepared for the actual sight. River upon River of bats pouring out of the cave with a sound like helicopters, staying bunched together like starlings while the hawks tried (and, more often than not, failed) to pick them off. I'm glad you had time with the alewives. I miss the bats.
You are a gift sent to us. Thank you for lighting up my life with beauty and thought during the past year.
Lovely conversation. As an original "back-to-the-land" hippie from the 60s, I was amazed (and the college-educated part of me was a bit ashamed) to realize that I'd never properly appreciated the cycle of all those anadromous species which journey back up into mountains with the nutrients they've gathered in the oceans as being nature's nutrient pump, cycling vast stores from one bioregion to another. What a wonder it all is! I never knew about sea silk until a few weeks ago, either: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Sea_silk
Whoa! That’s a lot of fish! I’ve never heard of them. But I thought you were through with schools for a bit. ;-)
Have a nice evening!
I don’t know why you don’t spend everyday with alewives instead of politicians, but THANK GOD you don’t!
Beautiful spring evening. My rhododendrons are in full bloom. Figs on my fig tree. Moss on the rocks and some on the concrete path (even some on the roof where I prefer they weren’t). Dinner with friends on the deck overlooking the garden. Lots of laughter heightened by Prosecco. Used pliers to pull the cork! Talked about Heather’s letters. Lovely Saturday evening.
Yes, Nature IS amazing. In spite of all the crap going on, solace can ALWAYS be found in some aspect of Nature. Kings and kingdoms pass away into dust, but Nature always remains. It is eternal. We aren't.
Sometimes it’s good to be a human being, not a human doing:
“Every once in a while, I’ll go outside and catch my goats just standing there, staring at a wall or fence. They could be facing any direction in their enclosure or doing any number of things but instead they’re just head first at big blank nothing, chewing like it’s totally normal. Are they stupid or something? It occurred to me recently that they aren’t actually doing nothing. They’re being goats. They’re not supposed to do anything but be alive. Standing there is their job. It’s their purpose.
“Follow that old joke: Don’t just do something. Stand there!”
https://thoughtcatalog.com/ryan-holiday/2015/08/human-being-not-human-doing/