by Jonathan Shipley
The holidays are upon us and the marsh is quieted by the soft wind and softer snow flurries.
What is Thanksgiving to a black-capped chickadee? It darts from desiccated reed to desiccated reed. Amid the fight to preserve our country during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln established Thanksgiving as a national holiday. It was to give gratitude to those who sacrificed for our country.
A hundred years before Lincoln’s proclamation, in 1760, French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the black-capped chickadee in his book Ornithologie. He used the French name La mesange a tete noir de Canada. We give thanks to Brisson for naming our bird singing in the reeds and arbors, and the bird has been giving thanks to these homelands for far longer than we’ve been walking this trail after a hard day at work.
Bodhi Day is celebrated on December 8. Also called Rohatsu, the Buddhist holiday honors the day in which the Buddha—Siddartha Gautauma—is said to have achieved enlightenment. What sort of enlightenment do box elders get at the marsh, reaching for the sun, digging in the dirt to create stronger roots? Perhaps it comes to the trees every spring, when the yellow-green flowers emerge. How often do we bloom when we walk under trees? Buddha said, “A tree is a wonderful living organism that gives food, shelter, warmth, and protection to all living things.” I agree. The chickadee agrees.
The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah is eight days. This Festival of Lights entails lighting a menorah candle each night. What light attracts a white-tailed deer? There are eight phases of the moon. The marsh deer glow under a full moon and become nearly invisible under a new moon. Near the Yahara River, they bound away as I approach. I, perhaps, during my lumbering walk, am an army to them. They alight into the dark of the forest. They want nothing of me and of war. They want only the soft rhythms of their lives.
A star, not a moon, guided the wise men to Bethlehem to bestow gifts upon baby Jesus. What guides the muskrat that lives along the river here? The term muskrat is said to come from the Algonquian word muscascus (“it is red”). Many Native Americans have long considered the muskrat an important animal.
Observing the time and size of a muskrat lodge, Native Americans could predict winter snowfall levels. Muskrats play a role in many indigenous creation myths.
It’s cold at the marsh this time of year. Sandhill cranes V above, eager for warmer climes. The once vibrantly flowered meadows are brown and thin. The river is freezing over. It's December at Cherokee Marsh. The chickadee sings its simple carols, for every day can be a holiday.
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