Acadia National Park: Whispers in the Fog

I close my eyes and listen to the voices of the rain.

~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

As I gaze out toward an impossibly foggy ocean, the soft suggestion of sharp rocks gets my attention. Like in a dream - I try to make sense of incomplete shapes, imagine the missing parts. I long to grasp something that maintains its form while we look at it. Maybe that’s something our brain does all the time when it translates impulses and light into something recognizable and known as “the world outside”. Maybe we never see things clearly (or as they really are)? Maybe we try to see them being steady while they’re constantly in a movement, to become something else? Maybe losing sight of what’s outside can sharpen inner eye?

Perhaps there is something unexpected to see from this invisible cliff...

I realize how weather parallels our inner experience of yet another pandemic summer: isolation, lack of clarity, lack of direction, an invisible threat. Hoping for a change of scenery and for clarity, I do find them in being here and now, on this woodsy, rocky, peaceful Mount Desert Island, in Maine. The trees, the grass, and the moss whisper in the wind, the rain softens to a drizzle, the nearby rocks shine darkly.

The color of the sky as far as I can see is coal grey….

Because it’s Acadia, there’s no bad time to visit. Summers tend to be more crowded, and for a good reason, yet even in the summer this coastal vacation-land may suddenly welcome you with a freezing cold morning. Well, it’s Maine, and the weather forecast couldn’t be more clear: all Memorial Day Weekend it will rain. I thought, rain is okay. My husband didn’t think so, yet we went. There was a song playing in my head...

…What a cold and rainy day. Where on earth is the sun hid away…

…With a shiver in my bones just thinking about the weather…

When we find ourselves in a foggy, rainy landscape, we can try to escape back to our comfort zone – or we may become appreciative of the invisible and unknown (and of questions that come along). Curiosity and attention will deepen the engagement with our internal weather and the living world, and may add a new dimension to our brief vacation or our afternoon.

What comes into focus in a fog?

On our first evening in Acadia National Park it was an unexpected presence on the Eagle Lake Carriage Road Trail. We froze, the deer froze. A graceful runner, the nocturnal whitetail. It felt almost like Acadia’s spirit of the forest spoke. What was his quiet message about?

In Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as “the younger brothers of Creation.” We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn—we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They’ve been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out.

~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

They say: pay attention when plants or animals come to you. They bring their message for you, something that you need to learn. And it’s not an accident that on our last day at Bar Harbor I visit a Native Arts Gallery (run by Navajo people), and I am attracted to a book:
Animal Energies. Interpreting the Messages and Warnings of Animals by Gary Buffalo Horn Man and Sherry Firedancer.

So what does the deer say?

Be more aware of all things in your environment. (…) Deer’s medicine gifts are gentleness and sensitivity. Very few people who are in tune with life can see Deer’s sweet face and not be moved.

True, our hearts and temperament soften immediately upon this unexpected greeting. A gift of the forest’s tenderness and mystery.

Carriage trails are not challenging, but mysterious and long enough to feel like it was worthwhile and sufficient elevation to keep it interesting. So they make you feel rewarded for your persistence, especially when the evening colors of a setting sun over blue-green hills warm up the whole sky.  But these were not the only trails we went onto.

When using granite steps from the asphalt road, the landscape resembled nineteenth century illustrations from a fairy-tale. Crossed streams, granite stairs, and intersections with other trails… the fern looked very healthy, the rock work felt so intricate, the mossy grounds glistened with water and light. Acadia’s spirits of the forest spoke also through the rocks, ferns, moss (and its whole miniature world: peat moss, hair-cap moss, broom and curly-leaved, plum and white moss…).

There is an ancient conversation going on between mosses and rocks, poetry to be sure. About light and shadow and the drift of continents. This is what has been called the "dialect of moss on stone - an interface of immensity and minuteness, of past and present, softness and hardness, stillness and vibrancy, yin and yan.

~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

Gentle whispers, ancient voices surrounded us and made us feel alert. I cannot say if we were looking at the trees or if the trees were looking at us? And whether some other presence was also there, not of an author of this fairy-tale (looking for elves and fairies, and tales to be told to the moss), but something big, breathing out-and-in in the mist, and holding us within. It was as if walking through a living organism.  

It felt good to end the day at the Aunt Betty shallow, marshy pond. Much of it is only 3-4 feet deep, and contains dense aquatic vegetation. This is where one may see a perfect reflection of a hill of pines and hear the loudest frogs. “Who are they?” – I can almost hear their talk. - “I have no idea; they don’t seem to have bikes…” “It’s too late to be out there, on the trails, and it showers, what are they doing here?”.

I don’t know if they figured it out, but it surely was a long and interesting conversation, consisting of a few different calls that were traced with a camera over the smooth mirror of the pond. In America frogs may say “ribit ribit”, in France “croac croac”, whereas in my native Poland they seem to be more eloquent by adding “re re” to every “kum kum” - but that’s not the point. One of them was making the very loudest noise we’ve ever heard before, and it was enchanting in its own way. What does my book say about meeting a weird sounding frog?

Take the time to heal your emotions.

Well... being carried (away) by different calls in my day-to-day world, by words… finding the rhythm of how to speak about rainy Acadia trail, another foggy day of overcast light in Acadia’s forests… about the meaning of the meeting with the deer or a bunch of frogs… listening to the raindrops when hiding under a canopy of wisteria next to Acadia’s deepest lake (carved by glaciers Jordan Pond)...

These stories come to be understood not by the ordinary mind, but in a way that will transform... yet it is still worth while to learn the symbolism of the beautiful cascading purple plant: its flower carries the meaning of good luck and devotion. And sometimes one needs a few years to fully understand the message that was received.

In some Native languages the term for plants translates to “those who take care of us”.

~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

On another gloomy day, when driving along the coastal cliffs in the pouring rain, the latest arrivals to the inter-glacial happenings… we arrive to the nice secluded Little Hunters Beach with its smoothly and perfectly rounded stones (some say they have healing properties). Here it is - a little tower of stacked rocks to signify that we are on the right track: practicing patience and balance when contemplating the environment in the fog and rain. It’s good to ponder on the way water wears away the edge of the land.

The rate of sea level rise on the rocky coast of Acadia is about an inch per decade now. Over the last decade the global sea level has risen faster than at any time in the last 3,000 years. Glaciers are melting and adding water… the volume of the ocean expands as the water warms. The Gulf of Maine which surrounds Acadia National Park has risen 3F over the last century which means it warms faster than most of world’s oceans… There are many more facts, stories, and numbers for those who have ears to hear (and hearts that won’t get discouraged but will be touched).

Also, the mountains of Acadia are being eroded by rain, and one day they will be worn away…

The ocean roars during our drive (Thunder Hole provides the sound).

Sand Beach is brown and sticky like a clay… even the gigantic rocks that dwarf us will be gone one day. Beautiful coves with sand beaches, pebbles and cobblestones will disappear – like they’re in fog, but for good… and, as I read in the “Field Guide to Acadia National Park, Maine” by Russell D. Butcher, new geological events will shape this land… Will our race of careless humans still be around?

The lighthouse on the cliff welcomes us with a bell of awakening, silent over the silent sea.

Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.

~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
 

In Acadia, the beauty, the mystery, and the simplicity of the natural world can be found effortlessly. The park, product of thousands of years of sculpting by glacial ice and other geological processes, is a true Nature’s artwork. Its rugged coastline, rocky summits and hills, deep lakes, ponds, and forests have been enchanting visitors for over a century: park’s land, previously inhabited by Native American Wabanaki people for 11,000 years, has been first set aside in 1916 as national monument, and in 1929 became Acadia National Park. With growing popularity of all national parks, and recognized healing properties of forest bathing, it is to be expected that Acadia will attract even more visitors in the years to come. How long will we be able to enjoy it, before the conditions on our planet become too extreme? 
 
Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.

~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

On our last day in Bar Harbor rays of sunshine break through the spell of dark gloom into hotel space. The weather outside is perfect for a walk to the harbor. Suddenly it is so bright, gold and grace pour out from the sky at the rate of the previous rain.

On the way home we stop by Pretty Marsh on the northwest tip of Mount Desert Island, and enjoy the shoreline view from picnic gazebo perched up on the rocks. There is a long stretch of gravel beach to accompany our silent walks there, and the large driftwood, ideal for a meditative rest.
 

Looking at the gorgeous forest setting with tall evergreens (soft pine trees) along the shore I’m reminded of a quote from Thoreau (“The Maine Woods”):
 
There is a higher law affecting our relation to pines as well as to men. A pine cut down, a dead pine, is no more a pine than a dead human carcass is a man. (…) Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose, and pine-trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it…
 
There is so much life around that so very few people on this planet really care about.

When thinking about the weather…
 
I hear the sound of a noon bell chime.
Now I'm far behind.
I shiver, quiver, and try to wake.
 
…yet, in my everyday life I still don’t see the burning forest, the drying river, the melting glacier, and the flooded desert land… the polluted ocean, and the abundance of fish that died in the Odra river in my native Poland this year. Even though we visited the fastest melting glacier in Iceland and crossed that Polish river during our summer trip. My sleep is that deep.

I wish I could really hear the whispers of the forest or cries of the Earth… yet all I hear is my own little cry - of its child tired of a race created by the civilization based on the idea of economic growth that fuels our climate catastrophe more and more.

Is it too late?

Lidia Russell

My photo from the “Weather” exhibit (curated by Alyssa Coppelman) at the Photo Place Gallery, VT.
November 2021

Joanna Macy writes that until we can grieve for our planet we cannot love it – grieving is a sign of spiritual health. But it is not enough to weep for our lost landscapes; we have to put our hands in the earth to make ourselves whole again. Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair.

~ Robin Wall Kimmerer