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Nature's Magic

By Allan J. Stover

Originally published in 1948 by Theosophical University Press, Covina, CA; electronic

version ISBN 1-55700-151-0. All rights reserved. This edition may be downloaded foroff-line viewing without charge. Because of current limitations in ASCII character fonts,

and for ease in searching, no diacritical marks appear in the electronic version of the text.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Brotherhood in Nature

The Poetry of Earth

Music of the Spheres

Opening the Book of Nature

Our Atlantis

Dryad, Hamadryad, and Sequoia

Vernal Pools

Timberline

The Water Ouzel

Mountain Sanctuary

Reverie

Angels of the Sea

The Fog Sea

The Cloud

The Kingdom of the Clouds
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The Rhythm of Life

Robin Round-the-Year

Trail Blazers

The Saga of a Monarch Butterfly

Autumn Tapestry

November Alchemy

Winter in Nature

The Architecture of the Snow

Seeds Go Traveling

Our Sevenfold Earth

Deserts and Evolution

Appendix

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Introduction

The world is a Mirror of Infinite Beauty,yet no man sees it.

It is a Temple of Majesty.

yet no man regards it.It is a Region of Light and Peace,did not man disquiet it. -- Thomas Traherne

The ancients taught that the Earth is a living being, and it is indeed so. They saw in the

rising and setting of the Sun and in the cyclic sweep of the seasons a sacred drama inwhich all nature took part; as, like a musical symphony, the year and its lesser divisions
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progressed through the four seasonal movements. They had few books, nor did they need

them, for life itself was an inexhaustible volume of revelation.

There is great need today to point out the spiritual side of nature, to teach the oneness ofall life, and to restore to scientific knowledge the ancient, lost reverence for the "web of

life" in which we live.

As a generation we are so blinded with knowledge that we do not see the wonder behind

even the simplest things, but live in a world whose taste is as the taste of ashes in themouth.

It is sometimes said by materialists that there is no law in nature, no plan or purpose; yet

Nature is indeed a living demonstration of the laws of cycles, reimbodiment, and cause

and effect, of which Theosophy teaches. These and other habits, or laws, of nature applyto all grades or degrees of existence. That which occupies billions of years on a cosmic

scale, takes place in an instant of time within an atom. The great is repeated in the small

and follows the same pattern.

We can know the life of vanished continents by the still surviving trees growing in ourgardens and forests. We can discover the traces of a once more active plant-life in the

microscopic plants that can be found in any stagnant pool of water, swimming and

darting around for food like the animals. The scrubby desert tea, found on all continents,is but an after-thought of the same great stock which formed the giant redwoods, pines

and cedars. The low club mosses we carelessly crush under our feet on some hillside

were once huge trees that formed the coal forests of two hundred million years ago.

The simplest events of nature, when understood, are acts of white magic. The change of

the dragon fly from the crawling, brown water-nymph clinging to the bottom of a pool tothe glittering, winged adult of the air, is a living symbol of the transition of the human

soul from plane to plane.

In fact everything, in its form and habits, reveals its inner nature, and in so doingbecomes a living symbol of abstract and spiritual qualities. It is the recognition of this

which has led to the adoption of natural forms as a kind of universal symbolic language.

Thus, in ancient times, a white lily suggested purity; a red rose, Love; the springanemone, Frailty; the crocus, Cheerfulness; the laurel, Victory; and the olive branch,

Peace.

Even today, upon important occasions of happiness or sorrow, we instinctively feel thefutility of words and resort to nature's symbolic language. The Christmas Tree, the EasterLily -- all gifts of flowers or of precious stones -- carry a message, often beyond the

power of words to suggest. .

The great mystic and philosopher of the sixteenth century, Paracelsus, said that:


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He who wants to study the book of Nature must wander with his feet over

its leaves. Books are studied by looking at the letters which they contain;

Nature is studied by examining the contents of her treasure-vaults in everycountry. Every part of the world represents a page in the book of Nature,

and all the pages together form the book that contains her great

revelations.

To rediscover Nature's treasure-vaults, we need no seven-league boots to explore the farcorners of the Earth, nor a time-machine to transport our consciousness to past eras of

Earth-history. By a study of that which is near at hand, we may understand both far-off

lands and the distant past. Sympathy and analogy are the keys to great treasures ofunderstanding and an ever growing feeling of kinship with all that is.

Considered thus, the hush preceding sunrise, the golden glory of sunset, the changing

tempo of the seasons, the turmoil of wind and storm, all these become illumined with an

inner meaning.

There is no event in nature which does not mirror in the small those laws which are

cosmic in their greater manifestation. Our words, even the letters of the alphabet,

originated in the ancient and primeval language of nature.

The world around us provides the here and now by which we can understand theuniverse, knowing a teaching to be true from our own observation and experience.

The materials for this book have been drawn from nature and from an extensive scientific

literature. The motif and the spirit which infuses it is due entirely to the precious treasures

of wisdom given to the world by H. P. Blavatsky and G. de Purucker.

The great sages of all time have urged us to seek for the soul of nature, to prove theirteachings for ourselves.

It is with such a quest in mind that the following has been written.

Superior numbers throughout the text refer to notes in the Appendix.

Brotherhood in Nature

There is in each region of the Earth an invisible, intangible essence or spirit that makeseach section what it is. It varies in different places, it divides: the continents into great

natural provinces separated one from the other by life-boundaries. Mostly we recognizethis inner character by the feeling of the locality, and by its resemblance to or difference

from some other place.

Like some continually sounding musical chord this 'oversoul' causes all within its

province to vibrate in harmony with the keynote. Trees transplanted from one natural area


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to another undergo certain changes, birds become darker or lighter, or may change in

size; in fact all forms of life adapt themselves in various ways to the overtone.

This quality or characteristic of a place, which we sense but cannot describe, otherpeoples have personalized as a god or deva. We may call it the 'holness' (1) of a place, a

term adapted from Ecology, spoken of as a quasi-organism of which the plants andanimals are as cells in a body. They see in a forest a living, evolving 'holness,' changing

through the ever-shifting cycles like a living thing.

Seen by the mystic, all life rests within an invisible essence, shaped, sheltered, taught by

it. This essence varies in different regions; it divides the continents into natural life-areas,

natural states, nations, empires, quite apart from the political divisions men arecontinually quarreling about. Do you doubt that this is so? Why is it then that. Southern

California, Southern Arizona, part of New Mexico, and Northern Mexico are bathed in

lilac atmosphere; and that the Mediterranean countries, South Africa, and Southwest

Australia, as well as the coast of Chile, also have the same tinted atmosphere? So striking

is it that anyone going from California to one of the countries mentioned finds himselfstrangely at home. There is the same type of vegetation, similar characteristics in the

people, and in general the same feeling. In a sense, all of the countries or areas abovementioned are colonies of the same empire; not a political empire but an empire of

nature. Is it not that the same spirit presides over each, and has shaped the flora and fauna

of all to similar patterns?

The Poetry of Earth

It is only when we sense the poetry of the Earth that we become aware that she is, as the

ancients taught, a living being, and begin to feel the oneness and interworking of all life.

Animal-life is either directly or indirectly dependent upon the plants, for they alone areable to manufacture food-substances from the elements. The plants in their turn are

dependent upon the nature and direction of the winds for their life-giving moisture. Thus

the world pattern of climate and life is produced, a checkered design of many shapes andcolors.

In Southern California the rains come during the cool winter months, leaving most of

their water on the slopes of the high mountains. To the east of the mountains lies what is

known as a 'rain shadow' where the great Mohave and Colorado Deserts are situated.

The higher peaks are clothed with pine and fir forests, and are covered with snow during

the winter months.

Between the high mountains and the sea is a region of winter-growth where the hills are

covered with a heavy blanket of low dwarf trees and bushes known as chaparral; or, asoften called, 'Elfin Forest,' for it actually is made up of dwarf trees and small bushes

which have small, hard-surfaced, evergreen leaves, well fitted to survive the long , dry
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summers. Most of them are strongly aromatic and were used in many ways by the Indians

and Spanish-Californians.

Beneath the shelter of the rolling sea of chaparral which covers hundreds of square milesof the lower mountains and hills grow a multitude of lesser plants; lilies and other bulb

plants, and a host of flowering annuals. In the broad valley lie almost unbroken stretchesof orange and lemon groves and great vineyards.

The chaparral region corresponds in both climate and plant life with the Mediterraneancountries of Europe where a similar growth occurs on both shores of the Mediterranean,

extending east to the Caspian Sea. Here are found the laurel, olive, cork-oak, aromatic

herbs and a great variety of bulb and tuber plants. From the plants of this region most ofour fragrant garden herbs such as sage, thyme, lavender, and rosemary have been

developed and carried all over the world. We also owe the greater number of our lilies,

tulips, and other flowers to the same area. In Europe this dwarf forest is known as

Maquis.

In the Southern Hemisphere, at the same latitude, is the Cape Region of South Africa,

where the westerly winds bring winter rains and a climate and vegetation very similar to

that of California and the Mediterranean. In each case Nature has taken different species

and shaped them to the same pattern, producing landscapes which are very similar.

At the same latitude in Chile on the west coast of South America there is almost an exact

replica of the valleys of California. Here the pines of the high mountains are replaced by

the monkey-puzzle tree, the scrub-oak and holly of the north by dwarf evergreen beeches,which with mimosa, colletias and others produce a cover recalling the chaparral and

maquis of the northern hemisphere.

Southern Australia also has a region of winter rains in which the dwarf Mallee appears, a

boundless waving sea of yellowish-brown bushes composed chiefly of dwarf acacias andeucalypts.

Each of these areas is characterized by a Mediterranean climate, by similar types of

plants and animals, and by a similar civilization among the people.

Can it be that in the anatomy of the world the lands bearing chaparral -- found on the 30th

degree of latitude are more closely related than we know? Is there something about that30th degree that we have not yet discovered? I remember crossing it once when in Baja

California, and it was startling to see the abrupt change from desert to chaparral on theexact line. And suddenly it struck me that the Great Pyramid and the city of Lhassa inTibet are also on this 30th degree. I wondered why.

We are slowly awakening to the mystical side of Nature, just as we are to the idea of One

Humanity, One World; to the fact that even oceans can no longer separate us from each

other. Yet Nature, not only in her chaparral-growth but in a thousand other ways has beentrying to teach us the same thing all down the centuries.


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Music of the Spheres

It was an old belief that an inner spiritual strength grew and accumulated in the solitudesof nature, and declined amid the noise and confusion of cities. It is certainly true that the

closer we live to unspoiled nature, the keener become our senses and understanding, andfrom this intimate contact has arisen much of our finer culture.

According to tradition, which is often folk- or race-memory, the arts and sciences were

taught to man by divine beings during the childhood of the race. This ancient knowledge

like seed planted in the ground, produces a new national impulse when the time is right. It

may again be here.

In ancient Greece, Pythagoras taught that the planets in their rotation and circling about

the Sun sang a song, each planet giving forth a note or vibration. The resulting harmony,

varying with the movements of the planets, he called 'the Music of the Spheres,' and

explained that the different planetary aspects produced corresponding effects upon earth.

We cannot hear this celestial orchestra, but according to the wise men of ancient India all

the sounds of Nature are directly related to one or another of the seven sacred planets.

Since each planet is an expression of one of the seven universal principles of Nature,every sound we hear represents that principle which is strongest in it. Thus the tone of

our voice may express anger, desire, suspicion, love, or some other quality, quite aside

from the words we use. Our dog or cat may understand us by the tone of our voice and

what it conveys, rather than by the words.

Both the early Aryans and the Buddhists of China and Northern India taught that the

union or blending of all the sounds of Nature produces a single dominant note, thefundamental note of Nature -- the Great Tone orKungof the Chinese mystics. It may be

heard in the rustling of leaves in the forest during a storm, in the dashing of waves upon arocky coast, in the distant roar of a great city, or in the mingled voices of a crowd. If you

listen, you will hear this fundamental tone, which is the middle F of our western musical

scale.

John Muir, in hisMountains of California, describes 'A great wind-storm in the Sierra

Nevada Mountains. He says:

Even when the grand anthem had swelled to its highest pitch, I could

distinctly hear the varying tones of individual trees -- Spruce, and Fir, andPine, and leafless Oak -- and even the infinitely gentle rustle of the

withered grasses at my feet. Each was expressing itself in its own way

singing its own song, and making its own gestures.

He found a tall, sturdy tree into which he climbed, clinging like a bird to a swaying reed,and of this he says:


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I kept my lofty perch for hours, frequently closing my eyes to enjoy music by

itself, or to feast quietly on the delicious fragrance that was streaming past. (By

permission of Appleton-Century-Crofts Inc.)

It is amid the deep forests and dashing rivers of Canada that the voyageurs sometimes

hear voices and singing in the tumult of the waters, voices which, strangely, are neverquite clear enough to be understood.

The celestial 'music of the spheres' is repeated in the sounds we hear on Earth, and themusic of nature formed the inspiration from which the various musical systems originally

derived.

In the melodies of Vedic India the Great Tone formed the starting-point, or keynote, and

the other sounds were grouped around it. The seven chief sounds were found tocorrespond to the cries of the goat, peacock, ox, parrot, frog, tiger, and elephant.

Mythology contains many references to the significance of sound. There is the syrinx ofPan with its seven reeds, the lyre of Orpheus with its seven strings, and many others.

According to old tales, it is because of the correspondence of sound with the forces ofnature that music and song are able to produce magical effects.

Every time we speak, the tone of the voice produces an effect upon all who hear; it

carries a message aside from the words spoken. Plato spoke of seven-principled man as

"the seven-stringed lyre of Apollo."

Go into the woods, and with eyes closed try to identify the birds, animals, and insects by

the sounds they make. Listen to the moods expressed in their voices, and you will know

something of how animals talk and how they understand each other. Then hear the GreatTone of nature by the blending of all sounds in one.

The Music of the Spheres is a very real thing, for everything that moves produces a sound

and even the atom is in constant activity. In most cases the sound falls outside the limited

range of our senses, but it is there just the same. As G. de Purucker has said:

The musical harmonies throughout Nature are going on all the time.Everything that moves, sings as it moves; and 'all things are moving,

Nothing is absolutely inert, consequently everything sings, and the stars in

their majestic cyclical motions, and the planets in their orbits, sing the

Song of the Spheres; but our senses are not attuned to take it in. . . .

They sing, all these entities, from the music in their own spirit-souls; they

can do naught else but sing. They are harmony in their inmost being, and

this harmony wells up as from a fountain and comes out and expressesitself in song. -- Questions We All Ask, Series I, pp. 429, 430


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Opening the Book of Nature

Each part of the world is characterized by a particular kind of landscape and climate. It

may consist of desert or grassland, steppe or woodland, or perhaps pine-forest. Or, in the

far north, of barren lands or eternal snow. It would take years of travel, and great

expense, to visit all these countries, but in Southern California -- and the same is true inlarge degree in other parts of the world -- we may see many of these types of life-zones

within a day's ride.

Deserts can be studied not only in the desert areas of the Southwest, but among the sanddunes of a beach or on some barren, rocky hillside. The steppes of Russia become vivid

to us if we visit the steppes of our homeland, for these regions are simply grassland,

sprinkled with the brush-covered hills and having a few trees along the watercourses. Atypical California landscape, one might say.

If there are high mountains near, so much the better. At Covina we may climb "Old

Baldy" and pass through the same life-zones we would meet in going far north to theArctic Circle. We would find flowers, trees, insects, and birds belonging to all thedivisions from desert to Arctic, and be home in time for supper.

Nature has a habit of repeating herself everywhere. And so, if we know where to look, we

may find examples of most of the regions of the world close at hand. Why? Because the

world is very old, and climate has changed many times, so that California, for instance,has been in turn hot and moist, hot and dry, semi-desert, and even cold, not once but

many times.

So it is that in the desert we find among the rocks clumps of bunch-grass, relicts (2) of a

rich grassland known to have existed some 1500 years ago. On the mountains are pines,incense cedars and fir trees, descendants of great forests which migrated from the frozen

North during the Ice Age. In the hotter portions of the desert we may find elephant-trees

and tropical plants, relicts of a migration from the south at some far distant time.

The creeping club moss found growing among the rocks once formed great forests whichin their decay became the coal we use today. These coal-forests flourished some 200

million years ago. The spry little fence-lizards -- "Sunny Jim" we sometimes call them --

resemble the stock from which the sixty-foot dinosaurs of the Age of Reptiles sprang,reached their climax, and passed away. The little lizard is still with us. Every living thing

has its story to tell, if we will only open our understanding.

Relics (3) of Lemurian (4) and Atlantean (5) civilization may not be seen, today, but if

you wish to know what a landscape looked like during the time of Lemuria, go into anyforest of pine, fir, or other coniferous trees. The coniferous forests were developed, and

spread over the entire Earth, during that period.

Later, in Atlantean times, broad-leaf flowering trees and shrubs, along with the mammals,

had their Golden Age, and have been declining ever since. Still later, with the Fifth Root-
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Race (6) as the chill of the Ice Age came on, many plants became dwarfed, so annuals

developed, for they could pass the cold winters in the form of seeds.

The native plant and animal life we see around our homes had its origin and climax agesand ages ago, and now survives as a slender stream of life, imbodying and reimbodying,

while mountain-ranges have risen, are worn down to the plain, and have risen again.

Our Atlantis

Atlantis was far more than a mythical continent which traditionally sank over night with

all its inhabitants. Atlantis was in fact the entire land surface of the Earth as it existed

over a period of many millions of years, and consisted of continents and islands, bothlarge and small, much as it does today. Then when its time came, hundreds of thousands

of years were required for its destruction and breaking up.

Today, as all through geological history, land is slowly rising in some places and sinkingin others, bringing about a continual change on the face of the Earth. Yet at certain cyclictimes these slow movements of the Earth quicken, and sudden destruction may overtake

some fragments of ancient lands with their wayward populations. The folk memory of

these cataclysms lingers on for ages, long after knowledge of the era itself has beenforgotten.

With the gradual submergence of continental masses, portions remain to be built into

other lands which are emerging from the sea. Thus it is that most countries have places

which can be said to have once formed a part of the Greater Atlantis, and perhaps ofLemuria as well.

While we have little concrete evidence of Atlantean peoples save by tradition and myth,

the plant and animal life of the era are still represented by living types, many still bearing

Atlantean characteristics.

There lies a sunken land, off the coast of California, which is some 200 miles wide and1,000 miles long, known to geologists as Catalinia. On it are mountains 12,000 feet high

whose summits emerge from the sea to form the Channel Islands of California. There are

great canyons, many river channels, and the depressions of ancient lakes. To the northnear Carmel Bay a canyon extends out to sea which is larger and deeper than the Grand

Canyon of the Colorado.

All this area is supposed to have been above water at a time when Atlantis was at its

peak. Later it broke up and large portions submerged. Since then there have been periodsof uplift and depression affecting various parts of the region.

San Pedro Hill near Long Beach, La Jolla, Mount Soledad, and Point Loma are all land-

locked portions of this great island. Still clinging to the seaward slopes of what is now

Torrey Pines Park, sixteen miles north of San Diego, are three thousand of the rarest and


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most interesting pines in the world. The Torrey Pines, scattered over the hills and

canyons of the Park, beaten prone by continual winds in exposed places, overlook the

ancient submerged land; while 180 miles to the northwest across the waters, on the Islandof Santa Rosa, a colony of a thousand Torrey Pines still remain.

Beneath the pines is the luxuriant undergrowth of a chaparral, while creeping up from thesand dunes long arms of sand verbena, and beach primrose intermingle with the

chaparral.

Botanists believe that these trees, now so rare, once covered much of the mainland of

California, as well as the area now covered by the Pacific Ocean. During the latest

sinking of the coastal islands, Santa Rosa Island was separated from the mainland; andtoday these two colonies of Torrey Pines are all that remain of a once great forest. Very

interesting fossil remains of a pigmy elephant are also found on Santa Rosa Island.

The Torrey Pine is unique among pines in having the largest seeds and the largest

needles, and unlike many pines it requires three years to mature a cone. The trees growrapidly and do not live much over two hundred years; yet when we think of the continual

stream of imbodiments by which a tree passes on its life essence through its descendants,

we may think of these pines as existing on these wind-swept cliffs for many thousands of

years.

In every section of the world there are to be found similar remains of ancient lands and

life, awaiting the explorer.

Dryad, Hamadryad, and Sequoia

Few have stood before the Big Trees, the giant Sequoias of the Sierra Nevada Mountains,

who have not sensed and wondered at the brooding consciousness of these veterans

which have seen the changing cycles of thousands of years pass, and themselves havestood unchanged, save for steady growth.

I well remember my first acquaintance with the Sequoia. The Big Trees seemed like

something from a different age, with a suggestion of the oriental. Then, as I saw a hollow

log which once had sheltered a troop of cavalry, and a little later a giant with a trunk 35feet in diameter, I became aware of the great size of these living relicts. I learned that

these giants had stood for three, or even four thousand years, and I thought of the many

nations of men which had risen to power, and each in turn had crumbled before somebarbarian invader during the life of this tree.

The earliest Sequoias known have lived in the Jurassic period of the Age of Reptiles

when Dinosaurs sought their welcome shade. They saw the Age of Reptiles vanish and a

new age of flowering plants and mammals appear, and still they thrived, reaching theirclimax in the Miocene, when they were spread over the world.


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Then, several million years ago, they began to decrease, until today the genus is

represented by the Redwoods of the California coast and by the grandest of their race, the

Big Trees of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Coming down the long vista of geologic time,these trees may well awaken memories of Lemuria and Atlantis.

Speaking of the Sequoia, Prof. E. W. Berry says: "We cannot but wonder at thepersistence of this type, practically unchanged for eon after eon, while all around were

dissolution and evolution."

Sishtas (7)these are; that is, 'remainders,' living relicts of a line which has endured for

millions of years. It is in these terms that we must think of the consciousness of these

veterans, imbodying and reimbodying through the ages, as continents and mountains roseand fell and rose again.

It is this sense of an overshadowing consciousness which led the Greeks to personalize it

in the Dryads and Hamadryads, and weave stories and legends about them. But every

race has had its tree-fairies, excepting those occasional peoples who think in terms ofboard-feet and wood-pulp, for about the inner consciousness of trees fancy has woven a

poetic imagery of young and lovely wood-nymphs inhabiting groves and forests, and of

Hamadryads imbodied in individual trees.

In ancient times the Hamadryad was considered to be the tree itself, both the woodyframe and the indwelling life, and this was symbolized by the Hamadryad as a tree-fairy

whose lower portion was a woody trunk and roots. But the Dryad represented the soul of

the tree, the tree's inner nature, for a tree like a man is composite, save that it has fewerprinciples unfolded. It is thus that great truths are preserved in myth and fairy-tale, which

would otherwise be lost.

Vernal Pools

The coastal mesas of Southern California, for a distance of several miles from the sea,

enjoy the refreshing moisture of the fogs which frequently sweep inland from the Pacific

during the night.

In this coastal belt, much of which is covered with chaparral, there are many flat basins ordepressions blown clear of the topsoil, exposing a compact clay which prevents the water

from sinking into the ground. These depressions are filled with water by the winter rains,

forming shallow ponds which are called Vernal Pools, and in the life of these pools wemay see demonstrated some of the most interesting teachings of Theosophy.

We may see in their changing life an analogy to the successive life-waves of a globe. We

may see the seeds of the life of a previous year, as in a minor manvantara, (8) earth-cycle,

springing into renewed activity as the climate and soil are prepared, each stage fromwater-filled pond to desert-dry lake bringing forth its special life from seeds hidden

within the ground. All cooperate and work together, each in its proper place, even as on
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the earth continents rise and fall, and climates change, to provide suitable homes for the

different Races, the hosts of lives which follow one after the other.

I once took a spadeful of earth from one of the vernal pools of Kearney Mesa, and placedit in a bird-bath where the following spring the whole series of plants could be seen

coming into flower each at the proper time.

In the early spring when the pools are full, pond-scum, duckweed, and a little water-fern

appear. Water insects crawl over the bottom, and little frogs ('spring peepers') lay ribbonsof transparent eggs which soon hatch into swarms of small black tadpoles. These little

creatures soon become frogs and make the night vocal, if not clamorous, with their shrill

bag-pipe music.

In the next stage, slender rushes spring from concealed, rootstocks and these with othermarsh-plants crowd the margins. The dragonfly and damselfly nymphs crawl from the

water and emerge from their cast-off skins to fly about with shining, glittering wings.

As spring advances, the water-plants having completed their cycle wilt, and a new type of

plant-life fills the now half-dry pool with a dense carpet of the Blue Lobelia. The blue inits turn changes into a Vivid golden yellow as flowers of the Gold-Fields appear, and

with the complete drying of the pool all succulent growth dries up and is blown away.

Now in the place of water-filled depressions reflecting the sky are many miniature drylakes, filled with the vivid crimson of the pungent Pagogyne or Mesa Mint.

The pools are now completely dry, and deep cracks and fissures cut far into the sun-

baked clay. In these fissures little frogs spend the day, coming out at night to feed; and so

survive until the winter rains. The final step in the series from water to desert occurs in

summer when the spiny Shepherd's Needle and the Turkey Mullein take possession. It issignificant that the plants of these pools are different from those of the surrounding mesa

and will not grow there, nor will the mesa-plants grow in the pools.

Whence came the plant-life of the Vernal Pools? Individuals of the various kinds occurscatteredthroughout Southern California, but here they grow in dense masses. A count

made one April showed from 800 to 20,000 individual plants growing in a single square

meter (9) of ground. Here they form an association, or a series of interblendingassociations, in which the little lives cooperate as though part of a living organism.

After the Ice Age, when the coastal mesas first rose from the sea, the climate gradually

became warm and dry, but in a narrow strip along the coast many forms of life continuedto live on, as in the Vernal Pools. So every year the Greater Cycle passes in review, fromwater to marsh, from marsh to desert, within these colorful plots of ground -- had we but

eyes to see it.

Timberline


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Ona high shoulder of 'Old Baldy' at an elevation of 9,500 feet, a mountain juniper is

sleeping through the long winter. Almost covered with drifting snow, it is well protected

from the icy wind. Battered and split by lightning, twisted and gnarled by constant winds,its spreading roots still cling to the grey granite ridge.

One inch of radial growth in sixty years! How many men live to be sixty? And this tree issix feet in diameter! How many of our proud nations last a third of the life of this tree?

At some distance from the tree large root-trunks heave out of the ground, only to vanishbeneath the surface again; suggestive of nothing so much as the smooth coils of a

Chinese Dragon.

Unlike the Giant Sequoia, there is here no overwhelming size to impress one, but as one

meditates beneath its shade there grows the conviction that here is a life which hasendured and endured for ages. For the occupancy of the populous San Gabriel valley far

below, with all its eucalyptus and orange trees, might be recorded in two inches of

growth on this great trunk, growing not in some sheltered and well-watered valley, but onan exposed and storm-swept granite ridge.

On various pilgrimages to the mountain, for it is more than a mere climb, I have often

sought out this ancient tree and breathed the delightful aroma of its foliage, while letting

my mind search back through the ages during which it has lived.

As a species the junipers are far older than the pines, being among the earliest of theconiferous trees to develop. They are also more widely distributed, being found from the

Arctic Circle to the Highlands of Mexico, as well as in the West Indies, the high

mountains of Africa, in Sikkim and Central China, in Formosa and Japan; usually under

conditions calling for endurance of bitter cold, intense heat, drought, and severe wind.The juniper is often used as a symbol of fortitude and endurance under continual

difficulties, and was the name chosen by the Franciscan, Junipero Serra, when he tookorders and came to California to found the first mission there.

We must not think however that the plants and animals we find in the desert and on

mountaintops would be happier anywhere else; for they would not, but would in fact

probably die. Those in any kingdom who have chosen the borderlands of ordinaryexistence cannot turn back to the soft and comfortable life without disaster to themselves.

The Water Ouzel

It was a wild night just before Easter, and at Camp Baldy, at an altitude of 4,300 feet,several inches of snow had fallen.

Early the next morning I went down to where the bridge crosses the turbulent San

Antonio Creek, and was immediately attracted by the ecstatic melody of a Water Ouzel


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who was flying around and around beneath the bridge, and singing as though unable to

contain himself.

The song of the Ouzel has never been described so beautifully as by John Muir, in hisbook, The Mountains of California:

The more striking strains are perfect arabesques of melody, composed of a

few full, round, mellow, notes, embroidered with delicate trills which fade

and melt away in long slender cadences. In a general way his music is thatof the streams refined and spiritualized. The deep booming notes of the

falls are in it, the trills of rapids, the gurgling of margin eddies, the low

whispering of level reaches, and the sweet tinkle of separate drops oozingfrom the ends of mosses and falling into tranquil pools. (By permission of

Appleton-Century-Crofts Inc.)

As I watched, the Ouzel would often dive headlong into the icy stream, and after a few

moments reappear some distance away. It was rather startling to see a bird flying in theair suddenly dive into the water, fly upstream under water, and then emerge and continue

his flight in the air.

Then he did something I had never seen done before. Starting at the margin of the stream,

the Ouzel began, walking upstream; entered the water and, still walking, now withoutspread wings, he was soon completely submerged in the full strength of the torrent as

he continued walking under water for perhaps twenty feet. Then he sprang into the air,

singing as he flew, to where I suspect a nest was hidden up under the bridge-timbers. Inthe meantime the mother bird was a quiet though admiring spectator, standing low on a

foam-swept rock, or higher up under the bridge.

How could a bird do this, in the full force of that swollen stream? The spread wings

appeared to be slanted against the current, and forced downward by the pressure so as topress against the bottom. If this were so, the bird was using his wings as a canoe-man

uses his pole to force his way up the rapids. But the Ouzel was also using the swift

current against which he was moving to help him, for, in fact, had it not been for the

current he could not have remained on the bottom an instant.

The Ouzel, in appearance resembling an oversized wren, has none of the characteristics

of a water-bird, but by intelligence and skill he has learned to excel them all. Without

webbed feet the Ouzel swims (or rather flies) under water with his wings; he walks upon

the bottom of the swiftest stream, and when he is submerging, transparent eyelids foldover the eyes from side to side to protect them from the swift water. His song compares

with that of the wren and mockingbird, who are near relatives, and the family to which he

belongs has been traced to the. Himalaya Mountains, whence it is supposed to havespread to many other of the mountain-systems.

He who would make the acquaintance of this bird must seek the foaming, cascading

streams of the high mountains, where he will find the Ouzel dipping, or bobbing upon


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some rock, flying below the water, or perhaps diving to some mossy nest behind a

waterfall. He seems the very imbodiment of the spirit of the mountain waters.

Mountain Sanctuary

I remember a hill in western Oregon, isolated, worn down to a mere thousand feet of

height; yet never have I stood upon its summit that I did not feel myself to be on holyground. I could find no tradition or history regarding it; only an ancient stone wall on the

summit, built by some one unknown, and about its base a number of sandy beaches,

where a long forgotten sea once lapped.

On another occasion I camped beside a little-known lake and mountain meadow in the"High Cascades," and all the time I was there I was unable to shake off the feeling of

being surrounded by many people, friendly but strange.

Twice on the chaparral-covered slopes of Point Loma, California, I came into an area onwhich a peace beyond the power of words to suggest lay like a benediction. . . .

There is an atmosphere about certain mountains, something which in an older age wouldbe looked upon with reverence; some inner fire which touches one with a sudden twinge

of nostalgia, of longing for the spirit. It is like some unwonted fragrance bringing with it

a flood of childhood memories. We are separated from the inner worlds by veils, largelyof our own weaving, and it is small wonder if in regions unspoiled by man, glimpses are

now and then caught of inner truth and beauty.

It is not only a haze of smoke and gases which hovers over our great cities like a pall:

there is a much more potent miasma of human emanations, thoughts, fear, hates andpassions which literally poison the inner man, and against which he instinctively hardens

himself.

It is reasonable to suppose that many localities affect people for good or for ill, according

to the thoughts and acts of the people who have lived there before and whose subtleinfluence still lingers. But this does not explain all. The earth itself is a living being and

has not only currents in the air and in the sea, but also spiritual currents and forces

following their own course and bringing to certain focal points conditions favorable forinner growth. Such places of natural peace and quiet may have been chosen in ancient

times as locations for shrines and temples and later impressed by the thought and

meditation of many generations of wise and holy men.

Only now and then does one find a peak which awakens a feeling of reverence. Sizeapparently has not much to do with it, nor has mere beauty. Yet where the currents flame

forth, there one knows and pays respect. He may sense the prickle of awareness and the

feeling that just around the corner he may come upon heaven knows what statelypresences, or perhaps if he be one of uneasy conscience, merely the suspicion of being

watched.


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It is this which made the Irish poet "A. E." exclaim,

Earth-breath, what is it you whisper? As I listen, listen, I know it is no

whisper but a chant from profoundest deeps, a voice hailing its greatcompanions in the aether spaces, but whose innumerable tones in their

infinite modulations speak clear to us also in our littleness. Our lips arestilled with awe; we dare not repeat what here we think. These mountains

are sacred in our Celtic traditions. Haunt of the mysteries, here the Tuathade Danaans (10) once had their homes. -- The Mountains

America, like the Celtic lands, has many hills and mountains long reverenced by the

Indian peoples. We once stopped at a service station in Tecate on the California-Mexicoborder, and as an old Mexican passed I asked the name of a high mountain to the west --

Mt. Tecate on the maps. He replied, "It called Coochma, very high." I said, "What does

the name mean?" and he answered, "It means high sacred place, place of initiation." And

such it was, for no one knows how many centuries. Formerly a grove of very large

cypress grew on the cloud-capped summit, but the white settlers soon cut down the groveand sold it for firewood. Fortunately, most of the mountain is now owned by those who

fully appreciate its beauty and traditional significance.

In ancient times the student of the mysteries had few books; in many places books werenot known at all. He lived close to nature and knew himself to be a part of nature. His

traditions were written not on paper but on the mountains and lakes of Earth, and in the

starry constellations of the heavens. The stories were told over and over again, and it issmall wonder if sometimes the meaning was lost, the spirit fled. Where is a race which

has not its symbolic Mount Meru, (11) its Olympus, its sacred mountain? Where is the

people who have not venerated the Sun and the Stars, the Wind and Rain?

Reverie

Gradually I became aware that the trees were talking. "What is that strange being so near

to us?" asked a slender young pine.

With a rustling of foliage a storm-battered veteran replied:

"That is a man. He lives at the bottom of the world beneath that ocean of haze. He comes

up here in order to see the sun and the blue sky and the mountain pines."

"I wish we could go and see things too, but I am rooted here, and can't move!"

"We too travel," replied the veteran, "only you don't remember. We are not this wood andbark that is rooted in the earth; we are the life which imbodies and reimbodies in tree

after tree for untold ages. Once we lived in the far north. Then came continuous cold and

snow, and we traveled during life after life ever southward, spreading over this land in

great forests.
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"This mountain-range was not here then. An older range stood in its place, one so old that

it had worn down almost to the sea, which then lay where the haze now hides the valley.

Then during the Ice Age the present range arose, and after a long time the climate againbecame warm, destroying most of the pine-forests whose seeds, excepting where they fell

into the cooler canyons, could not grow. Those of us who were left then slowly crept up

the mountains to where we are now, for here we have winter snows, plenty of rain, andclear pure air."

The little tree again had a question. "But why do westay here? Why do we stay in the

south? Why didn't we return to the cooler north when the climate became too warm?"

After a long pause the older pine began: "We stay because we have a duty here. We arethe Seeds of Life from which new forests will grow and spread when the cycle for that

returns. It is here and on other high mountains that the colonies of northern life are

preserved until that time."

The cry of a mountain jay startled me; I heard no more, but reached for my pack andstarted the final climb to the summit.

Angels of the Sea

'Angels of the Sea' -- those gentle fogs which come stealing inland from the sea of anevening in certain desert places, and leave the trees dripping with moisture when they

depart.

In Lower California, which is very arid, a condition known as a fog-desert exists. Here

for long periods of time -- sometimes and in some places for several years -- there is norain whatever. Yet the plant-life there is like that of a jungle, composed as it is of giant

cactus, festooned with streamers of air-breathing plants which obtain all their moisture

and all their nourishment from the air.

Here one finds a dense undergrowth of great variety, because through much of the year afog-cloud sweeps in from the ocean every evening and remains until mid-morning the

next day. For this period of time each day the vegetation is wet, in fact dripping, with

life-giving water.

Is it any wonder that the Ancients personified the winds and clouds and looked upon

them as agents of Divine Beings? Nay, as Divine Beings themselves. Vayu, the VedicGod of the Air -- the Indra of a later day -- with his 'daughters' the Maruts, who bring rain

and hail, the tornado and the summer breeze, the life-giving fog or mist -- 'angels' indeedthese are, making 'the solitary place glad' and the desert to 'blossom like a rose.'

The Fog Sea


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One calm evening in western Oregon, I lay on a grassy hilltop and watched the earth-

breath stream upwards from a freshly plowed field in the valley. Many ribbons of vapor,

like smoke from burning incense, were rising and expanding to form a film cloudlethovering above the ground.

As I watched, this grew and spread to mingle with similar cloudlets from other fields andbits of marsh, weaving a netted veil over the land from which it rose. Meanwhile the Sun

was sinking behind the western hills, and night soon dropped a curtain over the scene.

The following morning I returned, climbed the hillside through dense and dripping fog, to

break through it into brilliant sunlight as I neared the summit. As far as eye could see lay

a billowing sea of cloud, a silent ghostly sea, now dashing against the hilltop islands, nowsilently falling back. Overhead a few lazy clouds were drifting in a deep blue sky. The

illusion was so perfect that the city and populous valley, hidden beneath the cloud-sea,

seemed but a half-forgotten memory.

Just as I entered the fog on the way down, in taking hold of a rock for support I wassurprised to see that it contained a number of sea-shells. These shells, now fossils

imbedded in sandstone, marked where an ancient beach once lay, just where the present

sea of fog dashed against the hillside.

I later learned that this fragment of beach had been formed by the Willamette Sound, abody of water which filled the valley thousands of years ago, and I was able to trace the

beach for some distance, collecting many shells and leaf-impressions left in the rocks.

Curious piles of granite near the base of the hill were said by a visiting geologist to have

been left by icebergs floating from the distant Cascade Mountains. Long ago glaciers cut

deep canyons in the high mountains, and granite rock fell on the surface of the ice, to becarried down to the Willamette Sound. Here it floated off on icebergs broken from the

glacier, until the mass of ice melted and turned over, dumping the rock on the bottom ofthe Sound.

Bit by bit the story began to unfold, but I shall always wonder if Earth does not hold a

memory of her past and sometimes use old patterns in her drama of the clouds.

The Cloud

One hot dry summer day I climbed a 5,000-foot peak in the Oregon Coast Range,camping on the summit over night. The next morning a gentle rain was falling, and I

found the peak covered with a cloud. Glimpses of the sunlit valley were seen, while faraway other peaks, each with its own moisture-giving cloud-cap, appeared, marking the

Cascade Range for a distance of 150 miles.

The wind was blowing hard, and the cloud was not composed of the same particles for

any two successive minutes. Moreover, the air over the mountains as well as that over the


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plain must have contained the same amount of moisture. At times, the cloud even moved

for a short distance against the wind.

Out of the visible into the invisible for a brief instant; then, 75 miles away, into thevisible again it moved for another brief instant of time. Then once again into the All.

Look beneath each cloud-cap and you find pointed alpine-firs, mountain- and moisture-

loving pines, ferns, and mosses. 'Arboreal islands' some have called the mountaintops,

these areas of northern life, within a warmer, dryer climate -- life which could not existwithout these messengers from the sea, these 'angels of the sea,' as John Ruskin called the

clouds.

Let those who wish speak of temperature, rising air-currents, etc. But these do not explain

all, for Nature is a wonderland of mystery in which the simplest event is often the leastunderstood.

All trees, flowers, clouds and the droplets of rain that compose them, have their analogiesin the invisible world, and if we will observe, reflect, and compare, we shall know the

Realitybehind the Appearance that we call 'Nature.'

The Kingdom of the Clouds

We all know how dew condenses on the ground. In the case of fog, when the temperature

falls below dew-point, the surplus of water vapor which the cool air can no longer holdcondenses about innumerable specks of dust floating in the air, to form a cloud or fog.

These minute particles are all similarly electrified and so repel each other, which is one

reason why a fog never rains; although the moisture will often collect in abundance onthe leaves and trees and blades of grass. Indeed, under some trees condensations and

dripping is often so rapid it may appear at times to be raining.

Science calls these land fogs "radiation fogs," and explains that they occur when the night

is clear, with sufficient water vapor in the air, a high dew-point, and a gentle breeze. Asthe lower air is chilled below the dew-point, it condenses into a mass of visible cloud,

whichseems to move and spread as more and more air is cooled.

Once the process of fog formation has begun, it continues through the hours of darkness,

and as more and more air is cooled, fog lakes and fog seas are formed, often hundreds of

feet in depth.

With the coming of morning, the sun's rays warm the ground and the lower air, which can

again reabsorb the surplus water vapor, now clear, thus giving the appearance of the foglifting. Then, as the warm air begins to rise, more and more space is cleared of fog, until

finally the remainder is broken into fragments and carried upwards on the rising air

currents.


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If one climbs a hill through hundreds of feet of cloud to the sun-drenched summit, and

notes the temperature as he climbs, he will find a continual cooling of the air as he rises,

until at the top of the sea of fog the air becomes increasingly warmer as he continues toascend. This elevation at which the air ceases to become cooler, and instead becomes

warmer, is known as a temperature inversion, and determines the upper limit to which the

fog rises.

Those who have studied the upper atmosphere tell us that the troposphere, or region ofstorms and clouds in which we live, extends to about seven miles above the surface of the

earth. The air steadily decreases in temperature throughout this belt, as one ascends, to

some eighty degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Above the troposphere lies the stratosphere,in which clouds do not appear and in which the temperature not only ceases to become

colder but, as we ascend, actually becomes warmer, reaching at a certain high level 750

degrees.

The belt or line of division between the troposphere and the stratosphere is called the

tropopause, and corresponds on the large scale, to the temperature inversion on top of thefog sea in the small. We may, if we wish, think of our fog-swept hillside as a small

division repeating many of the characteristics of the troposphere, and as we look at fardistant clouds high in the sky we may know that they, too, are located on similar invisible

temperature inversions, and understand why so many are at the same height. Often we

may see several levels of clouds in the sky at the same time.

There are few things which illustrate so clearly the illusion of appearances as a study ofthe clouds. The commonest of sights, they still contain the greatest mysteries.

The Rhythm of Life

Beginningwith the first, faint coloring of the eastern sky there is a period of morningsong among birds which continues until the sun has risen, when the serious business of

finding food begins.

All through the course of a warm sunny day, the chatter of bird-calls and an occasionalsnatch of song may be heard in the woods. But as the sun sinks below the horizon there

falls a strange hush. Not a note is heard. Then comes the silvery voice of the Veery, the

Eastern thrush, singing, "Oh, holy, holy, spiritual, spiritual," as meadowlark, robin,

bluebird, oriole, and a host of smaller birds burst into their evening song.

The day is a cycle, and sunrise and sunset are times when the veil between the inner and

outer worlds thins; something from within touches the heart and all Nature responds. The

birds respond with their morning and evening song, the plants with the opening and

closing of their flowers and other forms of life in other ways. To quote Katherine Tingleyin The Gods Await(p. 161):


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The first three hours of the day . . . are the great opportunity. He who does

not rise with the sun loses an immense amount of power. He who rises

before the sun, and by daybreak has finished with the duties of this planeand what may be necessary for the care of the body, and,is ready to step

out with the sunrise and work with the sun -- he has the cooperation of a

force he little knows of -- the vibrant blue light behind the sun.

The four sacred seasons of the year are repeated in the four quarters of the day, and everyrising of the sun brings with it a renewed life -- indeed, a new Spring for the cycle of that

day.

In Spring, the sunrise of the year, songbirds begin to arrive from the South. Soon flowersappear, and there is a stir of new life everywhere.

In ancient times, man knew the inner meaning of Nature, knew himself to be one with

Nature, and lived in harmony with the Great Mother. Spring is the time to study bird

migration, and in doing so, to keep in mind that we are studying one of the great mystery-dramas of the Earth.

Records of bird migration over a number of years show that the time of arrival of any

species is closely linked with the growth of vegetation. If the plants are late, the birds will

be late also. So it is that by watching the life about us we come to sense the rhythm andpulse of nature, which, like an undertone, binds all things together.

There are many unsolved problems connected with the migration of birds. How do they

know the proper time? How do they find their way over thousands of miles, flying as

they do at night? And how are they able to travel for such long distances?

The Golden Plover, for instance, flies without stopping from the Aleutian Islands ofAlaska to Hawaii, and then from there to the Marquesas Islands, returning over the same

route in the Spring.

Bird migration has its touches of humor also, for recent evidence shows that small birdssometimes ride pick-a-back on larger species, their little chatter mingling with the call-

notes of the others.

In California many birds migrate up the mountains in Spring, where they find the same

conditions that exist far to the north.

Migration has many forms. It is universal. There is the seasonal migration of birds, themetamorphic migration of insects, such as the dragonfly, from a life in the water to a life

in the air. Then there are great racial migrations of plants, animals, and men, brought

about by climatic changes and other causes.

The peregrination of the human soul between incarnations through the globes of theearth-chain and the seven planets may be classed as the supreme form of migration.


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There are wheels within wheels, and cycles within cycles for the rhythm of life pulsates

everywhere.

Robin Round-the-Year

It is a strange thing how certain sounds, or perhaps the fragrant odor of pine or sagebrush,

or the salt tang of sea air, will sometimes open floods of almost forgotten memories. Toeach one are his own keys of recollection, according to his experience.

Winter had been unusually warm and dry for Southern California and migrating birds

few, when one night in mid-January the temperature dropped to 31 degree, bringing an

increased briskness to the step of even the elderly. As I was walking across the campusthat morning, a peculiar chirp I had not heard for years caught my attention. Could it be,

or was my memory playing tricks? No, there it was, a single robin in that live-oak,

chirping in a characteristic manner not to be mistaken for any other bird.

. . . I was again back in my boyhood days in northern Ohio; working out the life story ofthe robin, watching for the first arrival in the spring,, noting how the mother bird shaped

her nest, studying the rearing of the young, the first lesson in flight, the gathering into

large flocks in summer and the sudden departure in autumn.

Seen as a whole, the annual cycle of the robin displayed a structure and movement instriking harmony with the changing tempo of the seasons. In fact the impression received

was of some unseen and unheard orchestra, to whose every mood the birds responded.

First, with the arrival in the spring there was a period of exuberant song, of mating, the

establishing of individual rights to feeding grounds, with many bloody combats. Thisactivity soon quieted into the sober business of nest-building and the endless task of

gathering food for the nestlings. The male was now too tired to do much singing, save at

the ceremony of morning and evening song, in which all birds take part either withchirping or song.

After the young robins were ready to fly, the male bird took them to a nearby swamp

where they spent the night, returning in the morning to the nest where the mother was

incubating a second set of eggs, In early summer, when the second brood was ready tofly, the entire family joined the rapidly increasing flock which now numbered about a

thousand. During the day the flock broke up into a number of smaller flocks and family

groups, to roam merrily about the country harvesting fruits of many kinds, as fancychose. As the season advanced, the desire for companionship became stronger,

disagreements fewer, and the flock became more and more a unit.

The robin roost was very interesting. It consisted of a five acre field near the swamp,

which had grown up to a dense mass of brush and young trees. This field was joined onthree sides by a forest of tall trees. The first robins would begin to arrive shortly before

sunset, alighting in the nearby trees where they sang and chattered noisily. Every few


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minutes new arrivals would come flying in from all directions. Then shortly after sunset,

as though upon some signal, there fell a hush. Not another sound was heard, as group

after group flew down into the brushy roost and took their accustomed place for the night.I frequently slept rolled up in a blanket beneath the roost, with notebook and pencil at

hand. Before sunrise the birds were all in the trees, and after a short morning song,

departed in small flocks to some favorite feeding-ground.

With the coming of autumn a new phase appeared. The family groups were completelymerged in the flock, now numbering nearly two thousand. Frequently a dozen kinds of

birds might be seen accompanying the robins as they roamed through the woods. A spirit

of expectancy and suppressed excitement seemed to animate the flock, which often didstrange things, much of which was suggestive of spring. There was a minor period of

song, but in sporadic snatches rather than the full-throated outpouring of spring; many

birds made halfhearted attempts at nest building, only to abandon the work and dashmadly after the drifting flock.

Finally one night in October, the robins flew to their roost as usual, but some time duringthe night quietly departed for the South. The next day a sudden storm of sleet later

turning into snow swept most of the leaves from the trees, and left the countrysidecovered with white.

Somehow the long-awaited message had been received, for next day not a single robin

could be seen, and I was left with the feeling of having seen a fleeting glimpse of one of

Nature's mysteries. Each stock of her children as. a hierarchy is cared for, in ways notexplained in books. . . . In California the robin, unlike his Eastern brother, is a bird of the

high mountains, whose song is rarely heard, and who descends into the cultivated valleys

only during times of winter storms.

Trail Blazers

In the autumn the Unseen draws close to the creatures of the wild and they, inwardly

listening, often do strange and even marvelous things. This is especially so among thebirds in the Fall when they start on their long migrations to the South.

The Golden Plover which nests in the Arctic region of Alaska migrates along two routes.

One follows the coast as far as Patagonia in South America; the other group leaves the

Aleutian Islands, makes a direct non-stop flight over the trackless ocean to the Hawaiian

Islands 2500 miles away, and then after a short rest flies an additional 2000 miles toTahiti and neighboring islands.

Another species, the Long-tailed Cuckoo, at a certain time each fall flies some 2500 miles

from Tahiti to New Zealand, where they nest and return the following spring along thesame path.


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There are many such air routes linking island to island throughout the Pacific, but we will

mention only these two and what came of them.

Maori legend credits Kupe with the discovery of New Zealand in the Tenth CenturyA.D., and it is a matter of history that in 1350 A.D. a considerable party set forth from

Tahiti in great canoes loaded with seeds, young plants and animals and all the necessitiesfor establishing a permanent colony in New Zealand over 2000 miles away.

The question is -- how did the Maoris know land existed in that direction in the firstplace? Here is one explanation:

When a land bird leaves an oceanic island at a certain time of year, and year after year,

returning each spring along the same route, it is natural to suppose land lies in that

direction and at a distance within the bird's power of flight. This also is found inPolynesian tradition, which further states that range markers were set up to show the

direction of flight, while the arrival and departure of the birds were eagerly watched for,

and made occasions for celebration.

Indeed it must have taken rare courage for the first man to leave his home on a voyage ofunknown length, with only the migrating birds for guide and encouragement.

During the two or three weeks of migration, the speeding birds could be seen by day and

heard by night, and once the directional stars were noted these fearless Vikings of the

Pacific were able to continue independently.

As the Polynesians followed the airy trails of the Long-tailed Cuckoo to New Zealand, so

they are supposed to have followed the flight of the Golden Plover to Hawaii and to many

another island.

After the double canoes and outriggers of the Polynesians, there came the steamships ofthe Europeans, and in our own day great glittering aircraft speed along the same trails,

first known to the migrating birds -- but who or what taught them is not recorded.

The sun sags down on Tamas* path, across the changing sky;

New stars do leap across the deep to meet the wondering eye;New seas are spread on every side, new skies are overhead;

New lands await the sea-kings, in the vast grey seas ahead. -- Maori song

(After Best).

*Tamas: (Maori) a star used in the Polynesian system of navigation.

The Saga of a Monarch Butterfly

If after a century of scientific bird study there are still unsolved mysteries in the

migration of birds, how are we to explain the migration of the butterflies? By what means


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are migrating butterflies able to pass on from adult to offspring for several generations

the insistent urge to fly northward, ever northward, as soon as the wings are dry? And

how, once there, do the newly hatched know when to band together and begin the longjourney south?

Is it any wonder oriental peoples use the butterfly as a symbol of the soul?

The Monarch or Milkweed Butterfly is common throughout North America. It has

migrated and established itself in New Zealand, and is occasionally wind-borne to Europeand Asia. This butterfly winters in the southern United States, and, on the Pacific Coast,

in California. During the spring it begins its journey northward, frequently stopping

during flight to lay its eggs on the tender leaves of a certain species of Milkweed. Theeggs soon hatch into small, slender white caterpillars, whose bodies are ringed with

black. The young feed upon the leaves and grow very rapidly, and when fully grown each

spins a silk pad on the under side of a leaf, from which it hangs by its hind feet.

Gradually the softer parts of the body descend to cause an enlargement of the lower

portion, finally splitting the skin, which is then wriggled off. The upper portions soonbecome broader than before, and the whole appearance slowly changes. Then, as the

chrysalis stage is reached, the outer tissues harden into a transparent green case,beautifully decorated with rows of metallic golden spots.

The chrysalis stage lasts for nearly two weeks, after which time the structure of the

butterfly begins to show through the plastic covering. At any time now the transparent

case may burst open, and the butterfly emerge with short and crumpled wings; but as ithangs there limp, the wings almost visibly grow. When fully expanded, the butterfly

crawls to the upper portion of the leaf, and slowly fans its wings in the sunlight for an

hour or two before flying.

The whole process of change or metamorphosis from young caterpillar to adult butterflytakes about three weeks and, once seen, is never to be forgotten: Fortunately, anyone can

easily watch this interesting cycle, by searching for a caterpillar or chrysalis on partly

eaten milkweed plants, and by keeping it in a perforated cardboard box covered withglass watching it daily. Caterpillars require feedings of young leaves regularly.

The young butterfly is now a-wing and headed north, laying eggs in its turn, eggs which

will, in a few short weeks, themselves be butterflies. So the cycle goes on, generation

after generation, until the insects reach the northland -- it may be Oregon, Canada, in afew cases the Arctic. Later, as the chill of autumn approaches, the Monarch Butterflies

begin to band together and slowly drift southward, to spend the winter in some

eucalyptus grove in southern California, perhaps, flitting about on sunny days throughneighboring gardens.

Autumn Tapestry


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In autumn there is much to be seen in nature which reminds us of the inbreathing of the

Great Breath (12) a the close of the Manvantara, and of the periodic withdrawal of life

into the inner worlds.

With the close of the year, in northern countries, great changes take place. Deciduous

trees after a brilliant display of color, shed their leaves. Other plants withdraw their sap tosucculent bulbs buried safely beneath the ground. Annuals scatter their seed and wither

away. Insects wrap themselves up within warm, silken cocoons or lay their eggs inprotected places and die. Birds, after a bit of song and play, fly thousands of miles to the

South, while some animals hibernate through the long winter months.

There are many analogies between the four seasons of the year and the four quarters ofthe day, and as we associate the spring of the year with the dawn, so is autumn closely

linked with sunset and twilight.

In the lesser cycle of a day, during the hours of sunlight plants are actively engaged in

manufacturing starch, sugar, and other substances, taking water from the ground andcarbon dioxidefrom the air, while rejecting, giving off, and returning oxygen to the air.

With the setting of the sun the process is changed. The manufacture of carbohydrates

ceases. Oxygen is now absorbed, and carbon dioxide is given off as the materials which

were manufactured during the hours of daylight are changed and used in various waysduring the night. Day and night are both necessary to the growth of plants.

It is very fitting that September should be represented by the zodiacal sign of Libra, the

Balance, for around the 21st day of September the autumnal equinox occurs, when, as

around March twenty-first, the day and night are equal, balanced. From this date until the

winter solstice of December twenty-first, when the year is again reborn, the hours ofdarkness steadily increase in length. But not everyone realizes that the changes taking

place at this time, and indeed at the beginning of each of the seasons, are universal intheir scope, and affect both visible and invisible Nature.

In the world as a whole, we find that as autumn advances and life ebbs in the northern

hemisphere, spring begins with a flood of life in the southern hemisphere.

But there is a still greater cycle than that of the year. It is hinted at in ancient myths and

legends. In this greater cycle, according to the myth of Demeter and Persephone, aGolden Age of continual spring existed until Pluto seized Persephone and carried her into

the underworld to become his queen, where she was obliged to spend a portion of eachyear. May this not refer, perhaps, to the great changes recorded in the strata of the earth?

In geology we learn that the climate of the earth during the greater part of its history hasbeen much warmer and more uniform than it is at present, and that during these times

subtropical forests of palms, breadfruit and camphor trees flourished in Greenland and

Spitzbergen.


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The childhood of our Fifth Race occurred in the last of these long, warm geological

periods, when for ages the Race grew and developed. Then, nearly a million years ago,

the Great Ice Age came, changing the climate, bringing cold and destruction to greatareas, and sharply defining the seasons all over the world.

Scientists of modern times do not agree among themselves as to the causes for these greatclimatic changes. But an explanation is given in The Secret Doctrine, where the statement

occurs that the axis of the earth is slowly approaching a position perpendicular to theplane of the ecliptic. This position would, when attained, again bring continual daylight

to the polar regions, and continual spring to the rest of the world.

Even today there are many places, such as Florida and Southern California, in which thedifference between the seasons is very slight.

In the cyclic wheelings of these yearly events we have the key to many well-known

myths of antiquity, for it is a mistake to think that these refer merely to the yearly

progress of the sun or of the seasons. The wise men of antiquity used the symbols ofNature because they knew that all things, both in the visible and in the invisible spheres,

are working together and are inter-related. Therefore, they used the symbology of the

minor cycles of life, which we call 'seasons,' to illustrate the sublime experiences of that

Child of the Cosmos and "Son of the Sun," the Inner Spiritual Man. For them, everyevent in Nature held an inner significance.

November Alchemy

It had been a busy time for the Maple at Cold Spring, high up on Sunset Peak. For many

days the leaves had been making sugar, until now the sap was almost thick enough toresist the winter cold without freezing; for although this was Southern California, winter

temperatures are often bitter in the high mountains.

At the same time, at the base of each leaf, a leaf-bud was growing, well wrapped up in

bud-scales within which the new leaf -- one might almost say a reimbodiment of the old

leaf whose 'body' would soon fall -- would sleep until the coming of spring.

Often during the last week migrating birds from the Far North had rested in the branchesof the Maple, and since the lives of birds, trees, and insects are so closely linked in their

cyclic periods, who knows what hint of coming change they might not have brought?

It was now late in November. The air was clear and calm, but with a mystic quality

suggestive of coming change. That night the wind shifted to the North, and thetemperature fell and fell. With the coming of sunrise the Maple stood a glory of yellow,

orange, and red. We shall have to examine the tree itself, to find how the wonder came

about which glorified it that November night.


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Trees do not have a consciousness such as man has, yet without eyes they respond to a

wider range of light than the eye of man perceives; without ears they sense vibrations in

the air; and without their moving over the earth that which they need comes to them,brought by the sun, wind, and clouds.

If you were to examine a leaf through a microscope you would see thousands of tinypores on the surface calledstomata, through which air reaches the interior of the leaf.

There the carbon dioxide of the air combines with water from the ground to form sugarsand starches.

Now each opening orstoma has two semicircular guard cells, as they are called, in which

are small particles containing chlorophyll(a Greek word which means simply 'a leaf thatis green.') These guard cells serve as electric eyes, and under the sun's light the sugar-

content in them increases, distending and thus opening the pores orstomata, And

admitting more air. But when the sun's light becomes dim these cells collapse; and the

stomata close. This is the way the tree breathes and regulates the process of food-

manufacture.

Now, with the chill of approaching winter, the food substances produced by the leaves,

instead of being made into woody fibre remain dissolved in the sap, thickening it, and

preparing it to resist the cold without freezing, expanding, and bursting the cell walls.

During the period of actual growth, chlorophyll is continually being formed and

destroyed; but with the first frost that November night, the green chlorophyll, its work

finished, disappeared; and with the removal of the green pigments the yellow, orange,and red pigments could be seen. In addition, the increase of sugar made possible the

development of the vivid red dye which splashed the foliage so brilliantly.

It would take a volume to tell all that occurred that night, and at the end you might well

exclaim, "This is indeed alchemy, but where is the alchemist? For surely the complexparts of a tree could not do all these wonderful things without some over-seeing

intelligence." And you would be right.

The mystics of medieval times saw in them colorful changes the 'signatures of the Seven

Planets' who build and protect the tree throughout its life. The Greeks of old spoke ofDryads and Hamadryads and their hosts of fairy helpers, the soul and the invisible

builders of the tree. The modern scientist, with microscope and test tube, searches within

the plant cell for the secret of its existence.

Whether we personify the forces of Nature, as did the Greeks, or symbolize them by thestars and planets, or use the terms of the modern chemist and botanist, this fact remains:

Mother Nature indeed looks after her children, the trees, and they in their turn heed her

instructions.

Winter in Nature


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Those who have lived in cold regions know that birds and the smaller animals are found

grouping themselves together on the approach of winter. They roam about from place to

place, reveling in the abundance of autumn-food. The serious business of nesting is over,and the different family-groups seek companionship. It is as though the period of

individuality had served its purpose and was for a time laid aside as of secondary

importance and a realization ofbrotherhood had taken its place.

One may wander though the winter woods sometimes for hours, scarcely finding a living

creature, and suddenly quite unexpectedly, a woodpecker, half a dozen jays, a number of

chickadees, and a host of sparrows drift slowly past, with now and then a snatch of asong. Perhaps a curious squirrel or chipmunk and a number of cottontail rabbits follow

the merry assemblage.

Here is no strife. Life seeks life for the companionship it gives. Many large flocks have

gone to warmer climates. Certain of the animals have gone to their winter-sleep, or

hibernation. The trees are leafless -- but during the winter the roots are growing.

In man, to his sorrow, separateness is the rule. But among birds and animals it appears to

function primarily during the time they are rearing and caring for their young. When

these cares are over they seek companionship, as those who visit the woods in winterknow.

In winter, when the snow lies deep, the 'little brothers of the forest,' draw near to man as

well as to each other, trusting that the friendship which they feel, he must feel also. Andoften it is so.

The Architecture of the Snow

Everyone has admired the simple and beautiful crystals of quartz, amethyst, topaz, garnetand other gems of the mineral kingdom. Few realize that water and ice are also classed as

minerals by geologists; and that while it cannot be preserved in a cabinet, the snowflake

is as truly a mineral crystal as any gem in the jeweler's display.

There is a magic beyond understanding in many of the simplest processes of Nature, amystery which baffles the most profound science to explain. Such is the case in the

forming of a snowflake. This much, however, is known.

High up in the intensely cold layers of a storm-cloud, small triangular and hexagonal

plates and needles of ice begin to form, condensing directly from the water-vapor in theair about a nucleus of dust. But this is not ordinary dust. It consists of cosmic dust

natures magic k

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