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The Shimmering Line of Light

June 16, 2015 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

Have you ever walked a path that you walk every day and felt the lightest touch of something on your face? And even if you bring your hand up to brush it away, it seems like nothing is there? Tiny filaments of webs are spun from tree branch to tree branch–a suspended bridge connecting home and food sources for some little spider.

One bright morning at breakfast I was looking out the window and noticed a shimmering line of light by the front yard trees.

The light moved in the breeze and sometimes disappeared.

The sunlight was reflecting off a strand of dew-kissed web–a happy combination of water, filament, light, and wind. The sunlight danced along the spider’s road, moving one way, then the other…

until the sun moved higher in the sky, and I could no longer see the reflection. But the web was still there.

What if we are all connected by some unseen web? We feel light touches of this attachment when we pick up the phone to call someone and they were just thinking of doing the same. Do we brush it off as coincidence? We see the connection illuminated by the shiny glare of tragedy that brings people together to rescue, support, and fight for one another. We sense the shimmer of connection when meeting the eyes of a stranger and some spark ignites a smile. We hear that association when one person’s story sounds strangely familiar to ours, and our heart knows the ache they feel.

Perhaps the shimmering line of light that dances between us is God’s Love. It connects us in ways that are unseen for the most part–until a happy combination illuminates the bond. How fleeting is that illumination! Our positions change, outside forces exert pressure on the connection, and at times it feels torn and broken. Harsh words and strained silence tear at the bridge that was once a lifeline of Home and Sustenance.

The persistent spider rebuilds the web–even as we walk the path each day. Some things are worth it. As we toil, we must remember that the shimmering line of light is always there, whether we see it or not.

Welcome to the Sugar Shack

March 11, 2015 by Denise Brake 1 Comment

With a greeting of “Welcome to the Sugar Shack,” an azure blue sky with an eagle circling overhead, people in brightly colored hats, boots, and fleeces, and acres and acres of woods, I knew we were in for a great afternoon!

The monks of Saint John’s Abbey have been making maple syrup for over sixty years. After 2500 acres of land were designated a natural arboretum, the first Saint John’s Maple Syrup Festival was held in 2001. But before you can have syrup, you have to collect the sap! We joined a hundred other volunteers of all ages for ‘tapping day’ on Sunday. After a prayer and a song to bless the workers on their way, we headed to the woods. The ‘sugarbush’ is the stand of sugar maple trees used to collect sap for the maple syrup process.

In our group of ten, including four eager children, we learned how to tap a tree. We drilled a two-inch deep hole at hip height, making sure not to drill within four inches of an old tap hole.

A metal ‘spile’ was tapped into the hole with a hammer.

We hung a bucket on the spile, put a lid on it, and the tree does the rest!

During winter dormancy, the starch made by photosynthesis the previous year is stored in the roots and trunk of the tree. When temperatures rise above freezing during the day and fall below freezing during the night, it creates a change in pressure that forces the sap to move up the tree. The sap is approximately 98% water and 2% sucrose and supplies nutrients for the tree’s new buds.

Other maple tree species (box elder) and other trees (birch) can be tapped for sap, but the sugar maple is the most productive using 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. The average maple tree will produce 9 to 13 gallons of sap each season.

We tapped trees for two hours in ‘The Hollow,’ one of eleven areas of trees in the sugarbush.

Then we headed back to the Sugar Shack for cookies and hot chocolate!

Inside the Sugar Shack is a massive wood-burning evaporator that is used to boil the sap down to syrup.

The shed beside the Sugar Shack is filled to the top with stacks and stacks of wood. It takes one cord of wood to make twenty gallons of syrup.

Two Maple Syrup Festivals, one at the end of the month and one in April, will be the culmination of many hours of hard work for the monks and their helpers–wood cutting and hauling, gathering supplies for tapping, checking buckets and hauling sap back to the Sugar Shack, and the evaporation process. The real prize at the end of all that hard work will be the gallons of sweet maple syrup!

Isn’t it wonderful to have the blessing of a prayer, a song, or an eagle flying overhead as we venture out to work? It’s important to know the history and hard work that goes into making simple, delicious food for our tables and to appreciate all the things in our lives that are provided by Nature. May we all know the sweetness and flavor of a life well-lived!

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

March 8, 2015 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

You know how things can be going along rather smoothly with blue skies and sunshine, then all of a sudden, you find yourself between a rock and a hard place?

Quarry Park, with all its bedrock and spoils piles, exhibited a portfolio of examples of living creation dealing with an unyielding environment. But back to the smooth sailing for a moment….This aspen grove looks idyllic at the marshy end of one of the quarries, but not far below the snow and thin layer of soil is a deep layer of rock. The aspens grow in large clonal colonies derived from a single seedling. The extensive root system allows them to survive forest fires and thrive when growing over and between granite.

What is the story of this bent-over oak tree? How could such a large tree be bent at a ninety degree angle? Squirrel tracks in the snow showed how it was now used as a highway to the next tree.

It wasn’t until I was home and looking through photos that I noticed the huge iron staple below the wounded tree. Since it was adjacent to the quarry, perhaps the quarriers somehow used the tree and iron staple to hoist the blocks of rocks from the hole.

Two interesting saplings along the trail demonstrated that it wasn’t just rocks or iron that could put a tree in a hard place. This young, flexible tree was used for a deer rub. Bucks of all ages will rub the velvet off their antlers in late summer; then during the fall rutting season, the more mature bucks rub to attract does and warn away other bucks. The rub is a visual warning as well as an olfactory one, as the buck rubs the scent gland on his forehead against the exposed wood.

I didn’t look closely enough to tell if this buckthorn sapling was being strangled by its own or another’s branch, though the reddish twig suggests it is from another.

The last quarry on our hike was the only one with ice falls. Spring water flowed and froze on either side of the large plateau of granite where, miraculously, a sizable cedar tree was growing!

The snow-capped ice draped over the granite, and tiny trees pushed their way through the crevices of the rock face.

A green patch of moss with a head of white snow and a beard of ice nestled itself on a granite ledge.

The twigs of a tree were captured by the ice fall while its roots were wedged between rocks. Another tree caught between a rock and a hard place.

All of us will find ourselves in a very difficult situation at some time in our lives. It may be a physical challenge or a moral dilemma that offers two equally difficult or seemingly unacceptable choices. Sometimes we get ourselves into a tight spot when a person or situation looks like one thing but below the surface is really something else. Other circumstances or people can tear away at our defenses for their own purposes or wrap themselves around us so tightly that we can’t grow and be our best. At those times, we need to ask ourselves, “What’s my story? How did I get myself into this condition? And more importantly, how do I get myself out?” We need to connect to our colony of family and friends, the ones who sustain us through tough times with roots reaching with love and encouragement. It is possible to stand tall and prosper in spite of hardship, and like the ice that holds the twigs hostage, this too shall pass.

Do It In the Quarry

February 25, 2015 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

A cold weekend hike at Quarry Park and Nature Preserve challenged my physical capacity to stay warm, my photographic skills with bright, bright snow and dark rocks, and my Wheel of Fortune skills when I looked back over my pictures.

Quarry Park is now owned by the Stearns County Park System. It was an active quarry starting in the early 20th century when St. Cloud Red Granite was discovered there. When quarrying stopped in the mid 1950’s, the land began to return to its more natural state. The 684-acre park has twenty quarries of various sizes, oak and aspen woodlands, open prairies, and wetlands.

But getting back to my Wheel of Fortune skills….The sun and snow were bright when I was snapping pictures, so at the time, I didn’t even see the worn graffiti on the rock. When I first looked at the picture, I didn’t pay much attention to it, but then it caught my curiosity. Well, the bottom word has to be Quarry and that’s definitely In and the first word looks like Do and the second word starts with an I….Do It In the Quarry! Oh! Well, I thought, I certainly can’t use that picture!

I suspect the graffiti writer meant to say what some of us are thinking, and there are probably thousands of nooks and crannies for such activity in the park. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it may be the perfect tagline for what this park has to offer!

Do hiking in the Quarry! Or mountain biking or picnicking. Trails throughout the park wander through woods and prairies from one quarry to the next. You can pack in a picnic and dine beside one of the beautiful quarries or circle the whole park on a mountain bike trail.

Do rock climbing in the Quarry! Quarry #17 has been mapped and graded by local climbers. Free permits are required to get to the restricted area to climb this granite wall.

My favorite part of Quarry #17 is the chunk of granite with the drill holes that looks like a map of the state of Minnesota.

Do scuba diving in the Quarry! Most all the quarries have water in them–and now ice, of course. Four of the larger quarries are designated for scuba diving, including Quarry #13. Certified divers, along with a buddy and permits, can dive at their own risk because of ‘various underwater hazards.’ This quarry has several vehicles in the deeper area of 39 feet!

Do swimming in the Quarry! This one sort of gives me the heebie-jeebies. Quarry#2 is the swimming hole. It is the largest and deepest quarry at 116 feet. Yikes! To make things scarier, kids jump off the large rock wall into the blue-black water.

The ‘spoils’ are the quarried rock remnants, and since this quarry is so large and deep, the spoils piles are tall and wide.

They are constructing a new swimming hole in the Do It Quarry #11, complete with sandy beach.

Do fishing in the Quarry! Eight of the quarries permit fishing and have been stocked with trout. Just watch out for those tree branches when you cast!

In the winter, do cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and fat tire bicycling! The cross-country ski trail is groomed and lit (white poles) for after-dark skiing.

Sixty years ago, when quarrying ceased, I’m sure most people considered this area a wasteland. The quarry holes, spoils piles, and destruction of natural resources by equipment devastated the land. The abandoned quarry returned to Mother Nature, and ever so slowly, she transformed the devastation into a diamond. The forests grew and enveloped the quarries and grout piles. Water filled the quarries, and wildlife returned. Willows, dogwoods, juneberries, wild roses, bittersweet, and gooseberries were restored to the land. Mother Nature’s inherent power to Do It In the Quarry restored the man-made wreckage to a natural wonder once again.

An advertisement for Origins Plantscription serum said, “Life puts the wrinkles in. Let Nature help take them out.” I love this! Life can be hard and messy at times, and it can take a toll on our physical and emotional self. Just like Mother Nature restored Quarry Park to a diamond, never underestimate the healing and restorative power of Nature to help take the wrinkles out of your life.

Gleanings from January 2015

January 30, 2015 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

As any parent will remember, there is a certain age when our children constantly ask questions. They are trying to piece together the world as they experience it. By age four, children have the words to ask the questions that help them learn and make sense of things.

I scrolled through all the pictures I had taken in January and was surprised when questions kept popping into my mind. Usually I get some ideas of what I want to say when I look at them, but never before have the ideas come as questions.

What’s brewing on the horizon?

Where are we going?

What are our hidden treasures?

How do we get along with others?

Are we gathering the wisdom of the ages?

Who’s talking? Who’s listening?

What seeds are we planting for the future?

How do we handle Life’s thorns?

What makes us happy and want to dance?

What happens when we fall down?

How do we see the world?

How do we handle abundance?

Whose tracks are we following?

What bad stuff do we need to get rid of?

What are we hiding from?

Is anything obscuring our Light?

Are we heeding the warning signs?

What are the bright spots in our lives?

What direction are we flowing? Are we walking on thin ice?

Where is our shelter from Life’s storms?

What’s around the bend? How do we want to step into the future?

Why did we stop asking questions? We have accumulated countless Life experiences that have become the picture puzzle of our lives. And many of those pieces were put together with our child’s mind and no longer fit us well. The questions now must be asked and answered by each one of us in order to learn about and make sense of our interior world. These grown-up questions are just as developmentally imperative as our four-year-old questions were in order to integrate the Life of the World Outside us with the Life Within.

Mount Tom

January 27, 2015 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

Temperatures slipped above freezing on Saturday, adding to my dismay that we were smack-dab in the middle of winter and experiencing ‘tropic’ air and melting snow. So on a positive spin to my dismay, we decided to go hiking (sans snowshoes) at the nearby Sibley State Park. The ranger recommended the Mount Tom trail, so after parking at the trail center, we were off to conquer Tom.

The trail was snow-covered and slick in places, and as I carefully traipsed up the hill, all I could think about was ‘what if I fall on Aaron’s camera?’ So Chris stepped into the woods and fashioned two walking sticks for me which made the traversing so much easier–and faster!

Dark, peeling bark of three huge wild grapevines climbing a tree caught my attention. They twined their way into a sculpture fit for any gallery.

The dead lower branches of a red cedar tree and the bright white fungus lining the grooves of an oak tree added to the gallery of Mount Tom.

A decaying log displayed a palette of earthy clay and moss colors, almost bright in the white and gray landscape.

The media of choice for the oaks were fungi and moss.

The native Ironwood trees still held on to their rust-colored leaves. This understory tree, also called Hop-hornbeam, is tolerant of shade, slow growing, has hop-like, papery seedpods and tough, hard-to-saw wood.

A stand of young ironwood trees displayed their catkin flowers, hinting at the spring to come.

An hour and a half into our hike, after climbing up and down hills, we began to wonder if we should just turn around. Where is this Mount Tom? And what kind of name was Mount Tom, anyway? This is Minnesota! Our map of hiking and snowmobile trails was confusing, so we didn’t really know if we were on the right track. But I was determined to get to Mount Tom–after all those hills, I knew we had to be close, and I wanted to get a picture! Finally we got to the top of a ridge where the sun had burned away the snow from a patch of prairie grass–this must be Mount Tom!

Down the hill we found a parking lot and outhouse, evidence that we had reached our destination! But then we saw a granite structure with a viewing platform up on the next hill. As we walked towards it, we saw a sign that said ‘Mount Tom!’ Ok. And from the signage we read, “Mount Tom is the highest point in Sibley State Park and one of the highest landmarks in the area. Sibley State Park was established in 1919, in part to protect Mount Tom and the area’s glacially formed hills.”

“For centuries people have used Mount Tom for spiritual, inspirational, and recreational purposes.”

“The origin of the name Mount Tom is unknown.”

Our quest to find Mount Tom on the trails through the oak, cedar, and ironwood trees and up and down hills was finally realized! And here we were standing on holy ground! How many thousands of people had made this trek before us?

As we journey, oftentimes we don’t know where we are, our self-constructed maps become confusing, and we wonder if we should turn around and go back. But Something keeps us going. We carefully assemble ways to make the going easier, and we enjoy and appreciate the sights and moments before us. And just when we think we’ve reached our destination, there is Something More. And we find ourselves standing on Holy Ground.

What You See is What You Get

January 13, 2015 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

In what bold relief stand out the lives of all walkers of the snow! The snow is a great tell-tale, and blabs as effectually as it obliterates. I go into the woods, and know all that has happened. I cross the fields, and if only a mouse has visited his neighbor, the fact is chronicled. –John Burroughs

We were walkers of the snow on Saturday. Even though it was only a chilly 11 degrees F, it was a sunny day with no wind. With minimal snow cover, it was a perfect day for a winter hike! We went to Rockville County Park and Nature Preserve which is adjacent to the Sauk River and Eagle Park where we watched the eagles last summer. One of the first things we noticed were the mouse or vole tracks through the snow–not tracks, exactly, but a trail, as their low-to-the-ground body indented the snow. Scattered seeds of a fallen dock will likely entice the rodents to trek this way.

We saw deer tracks skirting a dried, prickly thistle, then following the trail through the woods.

A large area of the park has been planted to re-establish a natural prairie.

The arched seed heads of Indian grass shone in the bright sunshine and stood tall in the open winter.

We walked toward the Sauk River through the woods. We saw fox tracks and many fallen trees from a previous summer’s tornado-like storm. The River was frozen from either side of the banks, but the middle was a fast-moving stream.

The River had an S-shaped bend and as the narrow channel of open water turned each corner, it flowed swiftly as a Rocky Mountain stream.

Walking through the leafless woods and along the prairie with only an inch or two of snow covering the ground, we could see everything. We saw the animal tracks, the grasses, the lay of the land–what you see is what you get–until we got to the River. Up river and down river from where we were, the ice covered the entire river. The swiftly flowing current was under the ice, hidden from sight. Just how deep was the ice above the current? I wasn’t going to find out.

In the early Seventies, a group named The Dramatics sang a song ‘What You See is What You Get’ (Whatcha See is Whatcha Get). The phrase was used in the media to assure customers of the quality of products. It was adopted by Flip Wilson for his comedic skits. It is used in the computing world (as the acronym WYSIWYG) to signify that what is displayed on the screen is the way it will be displayed in print. Most of us try to display ourselves as the ‘real thing.’ We want to be genuine and live our lives without hidden agendas. We want to be like the woods and the prairie. But we all have a little bit of frozen river in us. What’s going on inside does not match what it looks like on the outside. The ice is covering something we cannot see–especially in ourselves. How thick is the ice? That may matter when fording a stream in winter, but Life doesn’t care. What does matter is that we work on melting the ice that separates us from ourselves so we can live our lives in bold relief.

Battle of the Buckthorn

October 4, 2014 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

The War on Buckthorn at the Brake woods continued with a recent battle in the south corner. Just a warning–these are not pretty pictures! Armed with a chain saw, hand saw, loppers, Round-up, and gloves, Chris and I went to work. He’s the chainsaw man, I’m the Round-up stump painter, and we both load the pickup bed with the piles of brush that need to be hauled away. Of course, I was so excited about attacking this patch of undesirables that I forgot to take a ‘before’ picture!

But this is what it looks like right next to the cleared area, which will give you an idea of what it looked like ‘before.’

And this is another section of the woods where the buckthorn was cut down but not yet removed. It is dense, prickly, nasty, invasive stuff.

Every square foot of our woods looked like that when we moved to our little plot of land above the river. Five years of battles against the buckthorn, area by area, has made a huge difference in the way our woods look now. As the buckthorn came out, Chris planted new things. He mulched paths through the woods, planting trees, shrubs, ground covers and perennials along the way.

He built a winding dry stream bed of rocks that can be ‘turned on’ to be a babbling brook.

He planted a small grove of Hazelnut shrubs that he grew from seeds. American hazelnuts are native to this area as an understory shrub or small tree. The nuts are small with thick shells, are high in protein and vitamins, and are highly favored by squirrels, birds, and other wildlife. European hazelnuts–the kind you get at the store–are not hardy in this area.

We left a fallen tree for interest and as a dividing line between the more cultivated area at the top of the hill and the ‘wilder’ planted hillside below. The white plastic cylinders protect oak seedlings from rabbits and deer.

Low grow sumac helps prevent erosion on the sandy hillside. Cedars, oaks, and honeysuckle seed themselves and are free to grow without the suffocating buckthorn. Raspberries, gooseberries, and many woodland perennials, including Jack in the Pulpit, have reappeared in the cleared areas.

Tamba and I enjoy our daily strolls through the woods. Every day is different–new shoots, new flowers, areas of weeds to be tackled, or the first red leaf of fall. You can feel the vibrancy!

The restoration of our woods is an ongoing project. Getting rid of the mature buckthorn is just the beginning–pulling the seedlings that grow from the years of seed production is the part that really tries one’s patience. A cleared area can be covered with buckthorn shrubs four to five feet high in a year or two if diligence is not taken to pull the young seedlings. But it does get better after a number of years! Seeing the woods come alive again with native plants along with what Chris has planted, has been such a joy! We see the unfolding of life, the glory of flowers and fruit, and the colors and strengths of the seasons–not the snuffing out of life by the buckthorn.

This is a story of hard work, years of time, patience, and perseverance. It is a story of hope, new growth, restoration, and redemption. It is a story of enjoyment, peacefulness, beauty, and bounty. It is the story of love and life.

Tonic for Distracted Living

August 24, 2014 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

Woods and water are Northern Minnesota’s tonic for the stress and strain of distracted living. Crow Wing State Park is a tranquil place on the bluffs of the Mississippi and Crow Wing Rivers. The Mississippi River here is only one hundred miles or so from its source at Lake Itasca on its 2, 350 mile journey to the Gulf of Mexico. The River is calm and serene, making it a perfect place for canoeing, eagle watching, and fishing.

The woods above the river include stately pines and oaks. Quiet trails lead to historical sites of a long-gone trader village and mission churches and schools. It’s a step back in time, a step back to yourself.

We ventured a little farther north to Star Lake Wilderness Camp, a place where all three of our kids have spent a summer working. It is one of those places that gets under your skin and into your heart–a place where you meet yourself and God. The rustic camp buildings were boarded up for the winter with only the memories of laughing campers lingering in the woods. We walked down to the beach on a sloping path through the towering trees with meadow rue and ferns brushing against our legs.

The lake was beautiful as ever but wilder in its non-summer state with no docks, no canoes, no splashing campers.

The exquisite Water Lily flower floated beside the rain-spotted leaves, not needing an audience or attention or applause in the unveiling of its loveliness.

We walked through the pine forest, a wondrously still and quiet place. This community of lofty pines amid the fragrant pine needle carpet reminds us that we walk on sacred ground.

And while we see the death of a huge pine like the one above the Mississippi River, we also see the birth of one in a bed of moss and pine needles.

Our distracted living–activities, sports, phones, computers, tvs, video games, shopping, drinking, doing, working, and many more things–can pull us away from knowing who we really are. The woods and the water can bring us back to ourselves–in all our pain and glory. It lets us unveil the beauty of ourselves to ourselves, which is the essence of a good and holy life. It reminds us of death and new life and makes us question where exactly we fit with this community of people living on sacred ground.

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