Tag: transitions

The Changing Seasons

Spring and autumn are arguably the most beautiful times of the year in the temperate regions of the world. With springtime comes waves of colors – yellows, purples, pinks, whites, and greens. Each day seems to bring out more color as the browns and grays of winter fade into the background. Warmer temperatures cause enzymes within the plants to begin blooming in anticipation of even warmer weather. Light greens creep up the mountain sides, transforming the brown to green a bit more every day. Red buds line highways and speckle hillsides with their bursting pink blooms. Dogwoods unfurl from green to white bracts. Everyday is saturated in newness and brightness, even cloudy and rainy days just enhance the brightness.

Likewise, colors define the fall season. The green palette that we grow accustomed to during the summer transforms to reds, yellows, and oranges. The mountain sides and individual trees appear on fire with color. Cooler temperature trigger this change as the trees prepare for winter.

While spring and fall are both bursting with color and beauty, they are also often the most tumultuous seasons of weather. Spring, as the air temperatures warm with the changing relative position of the sun to the Earth, is the transition from winter to summer in the U.S. In the Northern Hemisphere, the movement of the Earth results in the direct rays of the sun migrating from the equator on the spring equinox (around March 21st) northward, reaching its northern-most extent on the summer solstice (around June 21st). This pattern heats up the Northern Hemisphere during the spring and summer months, as the Southern Hemisphere cools. After the fall equinox (around September 22nd), the sun’s direct rays slide southward, and the Northern Hemisphere cools and the Southern Hemisphere heats up.

These shifts in temperature affect more than whether we need to wear shorts or a coat. Differences in temperature produce changes in air pressure. Air pressure can be difficult to conceptualize. Often, to us, air feels like nothingness – no weight, no resistance. But air actually has varying pressure depending on where you are and temperature patterns. Air pressure is often greatest at the base of a mountain and lower as you hike to the top of the mountain because less air is above you as you get higher in elevation.

A helpful way to think of air pressure is to try to visualize air as a bunch of molecules (little circles or bubbles, if you like, or the plastic balls in a play area). Picture them as filling our atmosphere. If you are beneath all those balls or bubbles, the weight or pressure is greater than if you are near the surface of the balls or bubbles because less molecules would be above you if you are near the top. Air is the same way. At sea level, we have more air above us than if we were at the top of Mt. Everest, and therefore, there is greater air pressure at sea level than at the peak of Mt. Everest.

Temperature also affects air pressure. When air is heated, the pressure increases as the molecules become more active and exert more pressure on their surroundings. Molecules in cooler air do not have as much energy and are less active, and therefore, cause less pressure. As the Earth moves around the sun and the direct (most intense) rays of the sun strike different latitudes, various locations on Earth experience shifts in temperatures, which in turn, affect air pressure. Differences in air pressure generate wind.

(I am going somewhere with this.)

Sooooooo… shifts in global temperature patterns affect air pressure which influences wind patterns which directly affect weather patterns. Therefore, with the transitions of spring and fall and changing temperatures, we often see the most intense weather patterns. In the U.S. during the spring time, winds from the Gulf drive up warm, moist air which collides with cold air still descending from Canada. The collision of these two opposite air masses results in an unstable atmosphere which can generate severe storms, flooding, and tornadoes. In the fall, hurricanes are formed from the warm Atlantic and Gulf waters and wind patterns in place over Africa and the Atlantic. The Great Lakes region sees lake effect snows because the lake water is still warm but the air coming across them is cold, causing heavy snows downwind (e.g. Erie, PA and Syracuse, NY).

We see this paradox of heightened beauty and turbulence in our own lives at times of transition. While times of change can frequently bring about new growth and heightened awareness, it can also be painful and uncomfortable. Springtime storms can blow through a forest and knock down dead trees and limbs, cleaning out for new growth. Likewise, painful or transitional episodes in our own life can blow through, wiping out stuff that we no longer need and refocusing our priorities. If we allow it to.

Unlike trees, however, we often resist what is happening if it is uncomfortable or we don’t want it. It is easier to bury our heads in the sand, push the pain away, or somehow deaden it. Allowing the pain in, however, enables us to deal with it and get through it. It is like riding out a storm, hunker down and feel the lashing winds and pelting rain and the temperature drop from a warm embrace to a biting chill. The alternative is to run from it, but you can’t outrun it forever or it will be the driver of your life.

Allowing yourself to feel the storm and suffer its pain can result in growth if you surrender and allow it to enter. You may be bashed from one side and then the other, feel like you are going to drown in the rain or freeze in the icy winds that follow. Just accept it or at least allow it to happen. You can’t stop the storm.

Afterward, if you allow, your dead branches will be gone and your last remaining leaves from the previous year are blown off. Rain has nourished your roots. It’s not easy afterward but you can experience growth and enrichment in your life as new facets of yourself develop and blossom. You can learn more about yourself and life itself. You will shed those parts of your self that are not doing you any good, not enriching your life. You will find things with deeper meaning that do truly enhance your life and learn to cultivate them instead. You become more compassionate and wiser.

Ecotones: Places of Transitions

Where were your favorite spots to play when you were little? Was it is the bamboo thicket at the end of the street? The tree in the front yard? I’ve always been innately drawn to places of transition within nature. They seem the most interesting and obvious. When I was little, I played within the vines and brush that served as a boundary between our lawn and the forest. This space was perfect for building forts and secret places. Another favorite play spot was along the banks of the creek behind our backyard where the forest gave way to the cold flowing water  and boulders of the creek bed. This fascination in boundary areas carried on through my  formal education. I performed research for my master’s thesis on the transition from a forest to a wetland meadow, and my dissertation was on the tree-dotted transition area between the high-elevation alpine meadow and the thick conifer forest below.

The area of transition between two ecosystems or vegetation communities is called an ecotone. Ecotones often are rich in biodiversity because they are a mix of two communities. The extents of vegetation boundaries mingle within this zone. Species are often at the boundaries of their growing limits (which is why the ecotone is there). Conditions may get too wet or dry, too cold or hot, or soil characteristics may change. A species that likes wetlands will find the drier conditions of the surrounding uplands inhospitable. Whereas an upland species will only grow until the soil becomes too wet. At the edge of a wetland, the conditions are somewhat wet and somewhat dry, allowing species that live in wetlands and those that live in uplands to survive. This occurrence results in both the presence of wetland and upland species within the same area, creating a zone that contains more species than found within the purely wetland area or the fully upland area. However, because the species are not situated within their ideal habitat, they are often at their physiological limits.

We also experience times in our lives that are transitions from a place that we are familiar with to a place that is different. These may be changes in jobs or careers, relationships, location, and/or health. Within these transitions, we still carry our old patterns but are also faced with new circumstances. With a change in career, you may find yourself pining for what you loved about your previous job while learning what all the new one entails. A new relationship can be exciting and fun, but comes at the price of certain freedoms and time that only singleness can provide. These transitions are some of the richest in our lives but like the plants living within an ecotone, often-times we feel we are on the brink of what we can tolerate. Change can be uncomfortable and forces us to grow. This is painful and unfamiliar, but brings gifts that life-giving and new (may often be seen only after the fact).

Ecotones extend from very short spans to long distances. The ecotone between a lawn and an adjacent wooded area is often abrupt – grasses growing right up to the edge of trees and leaf litter. Likewise, our times of transition may be quick, but others may take years or decades to fully incorporate. Transitions among biomes (the overall ecosystem of an region) can extend hundreds of miles. Many ecotones are somewhere between the two extremes and extend from a foot or so to several yards. A variety of factors influence how abrupt or gradual an ecotone may be, and similarly, many factors affect the transitions we experience in our lives.  Forced transitions may be painful and drag on for a seemingly unending amount of time. Health problems, layoffs, and break-ups are most frequently experiences that we did not want, and we resist them. Learning to accept what we did not ask for or feel we deserved is a hard process. As we face our “new normal,” we drag our feet or stop altogether. We did not want to be here. We did not ask for this. Acceptance can be a long road with many switchbacks and up and downs, but we eventually can get there. Acceptance will not change the fact that we have an incurable disease or will never be with our ex again, but it allows us to move on and begin growing within the new situation.

(Image: the treeline ecotone within Montana)