Nature’s Elegance: When Dying is Beautiful…

 

 

It started with my need for change. My need to discover. To witness beauty. That meant going outside. And I knew exactly where to go. 

 

I made a lunch and took some snacks, saddled myself in Benny (my trusted VW steed) and drove west. 

 

It was late October and the cold winds hadn’t yet cajoled the colourful leaves off the maples, aspens, birches and oaks. I knew I would witness something remarkable. I was in the north temperate zone of Canada, after all, and this was the height of autumn magic…

 

Soon, I was driving along one of my favourite country roads, a gently rolling barely paved road through forest and farmland that rose and fell over drumlins and eskers with views that make you sigh. A vibrant carpet of orange-crimson forest and copper-hued fields covered the undulating hills in a patchwork of colour.

 

I stopped frequently and stepped out into the light rain to take photographs. The air was fresh and clean against my skin as I breathed in the scent of wet vegetation and loam. A light mist washed the distant hills in muted shades of a watercolour painting. The nearby forests were anything but muted. I drove past flaming thickets of red-purple dogwoods and sumacs. Benny took me beneath neon canopies: the brilliant orange and deep reds of sugar and red maples, the lemon yellows and bronzes of aspens, oaks and beeches.

 

The flaming colours signify approaching death for the leaf. The deeper the colour, the closer to the end. 

 

With less light in fall, the green sugar-making pigment, chlorophyll, starts to break down. Other pigments, previously masked by the chlorophyll are revealed: the red-purples of anthocyaninand the oranges and yellows of carotenoids.As chlorophyll degrades, light striking the leaf may cause injury to its biochemical machinery, particularly the parts that regulate nutrient movement. So, these other pigments help to create a physical light shield and help the leaves efficiently move their nutrients into the twigs for the tree to use later.  

 

As the temperature plummets, the trees build a protective seal between the leaves and their branches, taking in as many nutrients as possible from the sugar-building leaves. Once the leaves are cut off from the fluid in the branches, they separate and drop to the ground, helped by the winds. Even in death, the leaves continue to contribute. On the ground, the fallen leaves decompose and restock the soil with nutrients; they also contribute to the spongy humus layer of the forest floor that absorbs and holds rainfall. Fallen leaves are also food for soil organisms, whose actions in turn keep the forest functional.

 

As I wove through the deep colours of autumn, I felt humbled by this naked beauty, so simply shown. So ingenuously revealed. How elegantly yet guileless nature went through its stages of individual dying to ensure renewal and growth for the whole.  

 

I returned home, invigorated and humbled by nature’s transient show. 

 

Within weeks, the bright leaves would fall, leaving the trees bare and gray and the ground a thick slippery carpet of brownish gray-black rot. Beauty enfolded, dissected and integrated. Insects, fungi, and bacteria would deliver what the leaves used to be and create something else, a gift to the living forest.

 

Is that not what death is? The end of something to ensure the beginning of something else?

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

Farewell Summer, Hello Autumn!

After a satisfying exploration day and photo-shoot of the fall colours now draping many of the trees in Ontario’s countryside, I decided to cheer Summer out and cheer Autumn in. It was a few days after the first day of Fall, after all. 

 I decided on a mint julep. It’s the official drink of the Kentucky Derby, which kicks off the summer in Louisville Kentucky where the derby takes place. Kentucky is best known for two things: its horses and its world-class bourbon. There is no better place or event that combines these two icons than the Kentucky Derby, called “the most exciting two minutes in sports.” The mint julep became the official drink of the Kentucky Derby in 1938, keeping wide-brimmed and well-heeled track-goers loose-limbed and happy ever since. 

The mint julep is a wonderfully refreshing summer drink and simple to make, so long as you have the ingredients: bourbon, sugar, ice, and fresh mint. 

Friend Merridy just happened to be about to harvest her mint from the garden and I had a bottle of Buffalo Trace Straight Bourbon. Buffalo Trace Bourbon is a great sipping bourbon: 90 proof well-rounded bourbon with initial aroma containing elements of spice, sautéed butter and old leather gloves; sweet and almost fruity, with oak, cinnamon, nutmeg, honey tar and beeswax, ending with a spirited and feisty finish. Like I said, a good sipping bourbon. 

I was about to make the simple syrup but found a recipe that would adapt this drink to Canada: maple syrup! Cookie + Kate offer this unique twist on the classic recipe for mint julep that uses Canadian maple syrup as a wonderful substitute to simple syrup. Says Kate: “Bourbon and maple syrup are a flavor pairing made in heaven, and the maple syrup adds another subtle layer of flavor.” 

The ingredients are equally simple:

 

• 10 fresh mint leaves 

• 2 oz bourbon 

• 2 teaspoons maple syrup 

• crushed ice 

 Here are the steps:

 

1. Muddle some mint leaves in a sturdy glass with a spoon (or with a mortar and pestle) until the leaves are dark, fragrant and broken down, about 30 seconds (muddling helps release essential oils and juices into the bourbon and sugar to intensify the mint flavour and aroma) 

2. Add the maple syrup and the bourbon to the muddled mint (in the mortar or the glass, depending on where you muddled) and transfer to a glass 

3. Top off with crushed ice and a sprig of mint (Kate advises that you “clap the sprig of mint before garnishing” because clapping the sprig once between your hands releases a lot of the natural oils in the mind, making it more fragrant) 

4. Settle outside on the patio and enjoy the first days of Autumn with a view of the fall colours.

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications in 2020. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books.

Falling in Love…

Last fall I drove across America with Toulouse to make a new home in Nova Scotia. I’d left behind a marriage of twenty years, a son in university and some wonderful friends to make a new life as an artist on the east coast: I didn’t realize it but I was really travelling in search of love.

While my mind was prepared for the unfettered and uncompromising—though at times lonely—life of an artist, my soul was seeking something far more elusive. I’d picked the Maritimes as a home-base, based solely on what I’d heard of their simple genuine nature and their celebration of art and a vision I’d had of living there; I didn’t know a soul.

Toulouse and I made our way across the northern states and Canada, over mountains and dusty plains, revisiting old haunts like Murdo, South Dakota; Louisville, Kentucky; Toronto, Ontario and Montreal, Quebec. As I got closer to the east, a strange thing happened…

First, let me tell you that my roots are in the east. I grew up in the French Canadian town of Granby, in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, a landscape dominated by the four seasons. Where the wind is like a fist. My favorite season is the autumn, when Nature bursts with the brilliance of a diva on stage. She scatters flaming colors across the road. They soar like flocks of exotic birds, vaulting to a chaotic chorus, and cover the earth in a mantle of russet warm tones that smell of home.

…As Toulouse and I crested the mountain range into Wisconsin, tears of awestruck joy welled in my eyes. The most breathtaking and welcoming view unfolded before me: a vast carpet of rolling hills, quilted in the warm and brilliant reds, yellows and oranges of autumn. I knew I was home.

I ended my sojourn in the charming fishing port of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, a UNESCO designated World Heritage site, known for its ship-building, particularly the Bluenose II, and its fine dining, art and culture. Toulouse and I settled there and very quickly made some good friends.

But it was on my solo journeys through the South Shore area of Nova Scotia that I fell in love.