In the Woods

Anna Dorthea Torbiornsdatter

"Dairymaid" by Gerhard Munthe (1849–1929) — “Dairymaid” by Gerhard Munthe

It seems to happen every year in the month of May – the ancestors begin calling again – do some more research, they beckon from the past, do some more research… It begins around Mothers Day, so I am convinced my late mother is egging them on.

In the late 1990s after years of hunting, I found a record of a second marriage for my Norwegian ancestor, Martin Thompson. He had married his housekeeper late in life and after his first wife died, a fact I don’t recall anyone ever mentioning before. Anyhow, my grandfather had told me that Thompson was Americanized from what sounded like (and turned out to be) Tønnesen. This marriage record said that Martin’s parents were John and Dorothy and that he was born 23 July 1818 in Brevig, Norway. John and Dorothy??? Didn’t sound at all Norwegian to me…

Meanwhile, my sister and brother-in-law were living in Sweden and my brother-in-law offered to hop over to Norway to do some research for me, something he excels at. He found that Brevig is now Brevik, a little seaside town in the county of Telemark, and sure enough, Ingebrigt Martinus Hansen, my 3rd-great-grandfather, who became Martin Thompson in America, was born there on 23 July 1818 to Hans Tønnesen & Dorthea Larsdatter. (John & Dorothy!) None of them were using surnames, they were all recorded with patronymics. Hans and his four brothers were sailors, and their father, my 5th-great-grandfather, Tønnes Ingebretsen, was a ship’s carpenter.

And that’s about where the trail ended for more than a few years…

But now through the magic of the internet and Ancestry.com, yesterday I traced back to my 6th-great-grandmother, Anna Dorthea Torbiornsdatter, who was born in 1735 in Arendal, a seaside town south of Brevik, in the county of Aust-Agder. I wonder what her life was like. She gave birth to six children, and the firstborn, Anne Lisbeth, died in infancy so her name was given again to the next baby. Then came Ole, Tønnes (my 5th-great-grandfather), Kirstine and Nicolai. Tønnes is the one who was born in Arendal and relocated to Brevik, where he died. There is so much more I want to know about Anna Dorthea – for some reason, she is the one calling me now!

ebbing tide

"Knitting Girl on a Dune" by Bernard Blommers — “Knitting Girl on a Dune” by Bernard Blommers

A thousand miles beyond this sun-steeped wall
Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand,
The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land
With the old murmur, long and musical;
The windy waves mount up and curve and fall,
And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow –
Tho’ I am inland far, I hear and know,
For I was born the sea’s eternal thrall.
I would that I were there and over me
The cold insistence of the tide would roll,
Quenching this burning thing men call the soul, –
Then with the ebbing I should drift and be
Less than the smallest shell along the shoal,
Less than the seagulls calling to the sea.
~ Sara Teasdale
(Sea Longing)

amazing mycelium

giant mushrooms (Auckland, New Zealand) photo by wonderferret

I believe that mycelium is the neurological network of nature. Interlacing mosaics of mycelium infuse habitats with information-sharing membranes. These membranes are aware, react to change, and collectively have the long-term health of the host environment in mind. The mycelium stays in constant molecular communication with its environment, devising diverse enzymatic and chemical responses to complex challenges.
~ Paul Stamets
(Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World)

Paul Stamets on 6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World

to fathom

We once had a philosopher named Melville
Who maintained that you fathomed the secrets of the universe,
But his name I only whisper to you, whales.
~ Harold J. Morowitz
(To the Humpback Whales)

a spirit in all music

“Young Woman Playing a Guitar Before a Piano” by Anna Ancher — “Young Woman Playing a Guitar Before a Piano”
by Anna Ancher

Music became a healer for me, and I learned to listen with all my being.
~ Eric Clapton
(Clapton: The Autobiography)

I let my music take me where my heart wants to go.
~ Cat Stevens
♫ (The Wind) ♫

There is a spirit in all music, the spirit has the ability to conjure up thoughts even pictures of something that happened or you wished would happen or you anticipate happening. Music has the ability to create ideas in you and me. It has the ability to encourage us to be creative.
~ Maya Angelou
(Facebook, August 25, 2010)

a new model

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
~ R. Buckminster Fuller
(Evolutionary Work: Unleashing Your Potential in Extraordinary Times)

glass jars with notes to the future

In April of 1966, the three third grade classes in my elementary school took part in the celebration of Arbor Day. Storrs Grammar School no longer exists, but the building is now called the Audrey P. Beck Municipal Building, serving as the town hall for Mansfield, Connecticut. On the corner of the property, near the junction of South Eagleville Rd. and Storrs Rd., stand three trees which were planted by me and my classmates. A solemn and serious child, this made a big impression on me. Each class had filled a glass jar with notes to the future from each child in the class, and each class planted its glass full of notes deep under the ground with the roots of its tree.

Every time I drive by these three trees, which is every time I go to visit my dad, I think of that day and wonder if those jars will ever be unearthed… Why are certain things remembered so vividly and others so soon forgotten?

Arbor Day as a holiday was created by a man named J. Sterling Morton and was first celebrated on April 10, 1872. It was estimated that a million trees were planted for the occasion, nationwide. I wonder if Earth Day, which got started in 1970, has eclipsed interest in this much older holiday. Certainly we can’t have too many reminders about honoring the lives of our dear friends, the trees.

The Arbor Day Foundation has an interesting history, click here. And suggestions for marking the day, click here.

And here is a wonderful tree post by my friend Kathy: Ditto what the Lorax said.

Happy Arbor Day!

Okefenokee Swamp ~ 4

4.6.12 ~ Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, Georgia

In a swamp, as in meditation, you begin to glimpse how elusive, how inherently insubstantial, how fleeting our thoughts are, our identities. There is magic in this moist world, in how the mind lets go, slips into sleepy water, circles and nuzzles the banks of palmetto and wild iris, how it seeps across dreams, smears them into the upright world, rots the wood of treasure chests, welcomes the body home.
~ Barbara Hurd
(Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs & Human Imagination)

As darkness fell we headed back through the swamp to the visitor center.

photos by Tim Rodgers

It was too cloudy to see the full moon, but as we learned on this trip, we often didn’t get to see what we expected see, but what we were granted to see was more than enough to fill us with gratitude.

Okefenokee Swamp ~ 3

To me, Okefenokee Swamp felt like a sacred place in the twilight, with Spanish moss hanging down like stalactites, and cypress knees rising up like stalagmites, like the ones often found in caves. I grew up playing in Cedar Swamp, another mystical place, in the woods behind our house. But this southern swamp is very different from, and much larger than, the swamps we have here in New England!

The swamp’s water is black, due to vegetation decaying in the water and leaching out tannin which stains the water in much the same way as the tannin in tea color the water in a teacup. After the swamp exploration our skiff turned out into a marsh, where we could view the sun setting and see what wildlife might come near.

To love a swamp, however, is to love what is muted and marginal, what exists in the shadows, what shoulders its way out of mud and scurries along the damp edges of what is most commonly praised. And sometimes its invisibility is a blessing. Swamps and bogs are places of transition and wild growth, breeding grounds, experimental labs where organisms and ideas have the luxury of being out of the spotlight, where the imagination can mutate and mate, send tendrils into and out of the water.
~ Barbara Hurd
(Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs & Human Imagination)

One last batch of pictures from Okefenokee Swamp tomorrow!

photos by Tim Rodgers