WordSisters

Category: Energy

  • Forty Gallons into One

    Quality sleep generally suffers when serious, worrisome, or sad things press on daily life. And here we are with a horrible cacophony of such news screaming across the media, in grocery store lines, and casual conversations as friends and family look for some tiny assurance that the world, our country, or at least a personal circle could be okay.

    Driving through rural areas in late winter, bags hang from trees ready to tap maple sap. Other trees might also be tapped, but maple trees are the largest producers. Tubing might zig-zag through a larger tree stand instead to gather sap into larger lines and run to collection tanks. For a small syrup maker, the sap will fill bags or pails which will be collected then carried to the sugar house location.

    Forty gallons of sap are needed to make one gallon of maple syrup. The sap is boiled over an open flame until extra fluid is gone, then foam is removed and the syrup filtered. The process is time consuming with possibilities for accidents like burns and back strains. 

    Some syrup seasons snow still stands in the woods. As kids we filled small bowls with snow then bothered adults until syrup was poured over it. We learned how putting the maple candy in your mouth too quickly could painfully burn a tongue and how hot maple syrup splatter hurt on bare flesh. Regardless of age, we walked around the tubing, hot fires or equipment. No running for so many reasons.

    If weather affects trees or harvest happens too late, the sap might be cloudy or bitter wrecking a season. If sap is undercooked or overcooked the syrup will be of lower quality. If deer and bears mess with piping the sap may drain onto the ground instead of filling the collection tank. Many things can reduce production from 20 gallons to a few or nothing.

    The world seems to operate with the similar equations as maple syrup. A whole lot of good raw material or information may be required to produce a small amount of awesome happiness. There are many ways to interfere with delivery of the good and deliver serious, worrisome, or sad results. Maybe when sleep is disrupted, the thought of breakfast including fresh maple syrup can sweeten dreams or at least make the night hours pass easier. Forty gallons of springtime sap into a few tablespoons of delight.

  • Connection

    “I see you, Crystel,” I say. She’s hanging in the apple tree above me. I pause my reading. Decide to snap a photo to send to her. She flits away before I can reach my phone. Of course. She’s elusive like that. Later, I’m sitting in the living room when I hear, “Chip, chip, chip” through the open door. “I hear you, Crystel,” I say. She sometimes follows me when I walk the dogs. Flying from tree to tree as we make our way around the neighborhood.

    Crystel is currently a senior at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “Why am I a male cardinal?” she asks when I tell her that in her absence, she has embodied that symbol.

    It’s simple. “Because I can see you. It’s hard to miss a red cardinal perched in our trees, settling on our fence line, or resting on electrical wire,” I tell her. Really, she could have easily been a yellow finch that visits our purple anise hyssop for their dried seeds, or a monarch butterfly that reminds Jody of her mother, or a dragonfly that dips into our pool for a drink.

    “There’s Granny,” we all say when we see the colorful monarch. Jody and Crystel were at Granny’s gravesite shortly after she died. They were sitting on the ground facing Granny and reminiscing. A butterfly suddenly swooped towards their faces. There was no mistaking that was Granny.  

    For our wedding announcement 22 years ago, Jody and I used the dragonfly and a poem by Scott Russell Sanders: To be centered… means to have a home territory, to be attached in a web of relationships with other people, to value common experience, and to recognize that one’s life rises constantly from inward depths. The dragonfly represented transformation.

    The male cardinal transforms my energy connection to Crystel into physical form. A sighting of the brilliant red birds and their distinctive whistle awakens my sight and hearing senses. I smile, laugh. Send her love.

    Juan is a constant presence. His car is in the driveway. If I’m up early enough I can hear him leave in the morning for work and ask him how his day went when he comes home. Jody and I bring him keepsakes from our travels. He’s solid, steady, a known entity. I like having him at home. It’s a gift. I prefer he doesn’t become a symbol, though I expect some day he will.

    Change is the one thing we can count on.

    photo credit audubon