Dork-eye Junco Sometimes described as attractive, or even “flashy”, this twerp is actually just another grey american sparrow. But this doesn’t stop it from flitting to and fro all over the forest floors, making its loud, painfully high-pitched trill, and scratching around for food with its feet.
The male’s song is a loud trill of the same note, repeated up to 23 times. It can last for several seconds and is irritating enough to be heard from hundreds of feet away.
Color:Boring. It’s got a white under-belly, as if anyone cares.
The California towhee, a beige midsize sedan of a bird, does not have what we would ordinarily call a song. Instead, it emits a loud, periodic beeping that sounds like a smoke detector running low on batteries—a noise my dad refers to as a “chirp bomb.” You’ll hear it from below rather than above, since towhees like to forage through leaf litter, quickly jumping forward and back in search of bugs. My neighborhood in Oakland is full of this mix of dry rustling and beeping.
California towhees aren’t as simple as they seem. While they look to be colored a dull brown all over, closer inspection reveals a bit of orange streaking just below the beak and under the tail, prompting me to nickname them “secret orange-butts.” Their sound repertoire, too, is more complex than chirp bombs: very occasionally, I will hear one or more of them let out an agitated sound, descending in pitch, that I can compare only to someone using a squeaky marker on a whiteboard to draw tighter and tighter squiggles. This signals towhee drama, as far as I can tell, since it coincides with the birds chasing one another through the shrubbery.
Most of the time, though, the beeps are all you hear. Generic as this “song” may seem, it is actually quite geographically specific: the range of California towhees is restricted almost entirely to California and Baja California. And because they are present all year round, the steadiness of their chirps has begun to remind me less of a smoke detector and more of a clock marking local time.
In the Japanese taxonomy of breezes, the perfumed winds(風薫) blow just before the south-easterly winds of the rainy season, which arrive later in the month. Known as the plum rains (梅雨)—so heavy, the downpours are said to knock the ripening plums right off their branches. When that happens, it is the yellow sparrow wind (黄雀風) that is blowing. The ancient calendar is filled with times when one thing is transformed into another. In this case, Chinese legend has it that when this wind blows, the fish in the ocean turn into tiny sparrows.
Cleopatra knew all about winds. She traveled the Nile on a boat whose sails were perfumed in sandalwood and rose water. Adorned with purple sails so perfumed, Shakespeare said, the winds were love-sick with them.
In Los Angeles, May is the time of “peacocks screeching in the palm trees.” Their desperate longing can be heard for miles around. Still weeks away from “June Gloom,” when a heavy marine layer blankets the city in thick mist, in May the roses bake in the LA sun.
May is also marked by the flowering of the jacaranda trees. Strange that hardly anyone mentions them, since the world turns purple in May. That’s when I become Cleopatra for a few weeks, living in a cloud of purple perfumed blossoms.
Wispy mist and thick clouds The afternoon stretches on, endlessly in sadness Sweet incense rises from a golden brazier On this auspicious festival day—Chongyang. As evening fall, the chills slips in Through silken curtains to my little jade pillow
Sipping wine that evening—there by the eastern fence The fragrance of the chrysanthemums filling up my sleeves, secretely, quietly How can I not be distraught? The autumn wind fills the curtains I have grown thinner than the chrysanthemums.
Li Qingzhao--longing for her husband who was faraway on business, spent the day in bed-- drinking wine and composing poems, in the shadow of the flowers by the eastern fence(採菊東籬下).
Sending him the poem, it is said that when he read it, so impressed was he that he vowed to not leave his room until he had composed a poem back of equal perfection. Refusing all food and all visitors for three days, he composed poem after poem. Later, he would incorporate her words with words of his own in a poem that a friend would remark about, "there are only three good lines in this one" (and those three good lines were, of course, the ones he had borrowed from his wife's masterpiece!)
She was the greatest poetess in Chinese history. And like all great poets, she sought to refine her emotions in elegant and edifying metaphors about nature. Lady Li loved flowers and by situating her emotions in seasonal images, personal emotions were therby refined and made universal. But at the same time, she saw things in the flowers themselves that were admirable and worthy of emulation; for not only are flowers beautiful and joyous but they also symbolize strength and nobility of character-- attributes that we can all learn from. Or, in the words of my ikebana teacher, when a flower blooms, it either blooms in its fullest capacity and with all its might, or it’s a dud.
No half measures for flowers. --with Ting-Jen
Interesting article on emotion, nature and japanese Buddhism--here. Photo and video by the Great Ninagawa Mika
Be like a flower, from Sri Aurobindo's The Spiritual Significance of Flowers
Be like a flower. One must try to become like a flower: open, frank, equal, generous and kind. Do you know what it means? A flower is open to all that surrounds it: Nature, light, the rays of the sun, the wind, etc. It exerts a spontaneous influence on all that is around it. It radiates a joy and a beauty. It is frank: it hides nothing of its beauty, and lets it flow frankly out of itself. What is within, what is in its depths, it lets it come out so that everyone can see it. It is equal: it has no preference. Everyone can enjoy its beauty and its perfume, without rivalry. It is equal and the same for everybody. There is no difference, or anything whatsoever. Then generous: without reserve or restriction, how it gives the mysterious beauty and the very own perfume of Nature. It sacrifices itself entirely for our pleasure, even its life it sacrifices to express this beauty and the secret of the things gathered within itself. And then, kind: it has such a tenderness, it is so sweet, so close to us, so loving. Its presence fills us with joy. It is always cheerful and happy. Happy is he who can exchange his qualities with the real qualities of the flowers. Try to cultivate in yourself their refined qualities