Dancing With Change

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”                  Alan Watts

A beautiful artistic sign at the trail head welcomed me onto this natural path at Ankeny Wildlife Refuge for my fourth hike from William Sullivan’s book, 100 Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades. The sound of honking geese flying overhead in “air force” formation first alerted me to the amazing abundance of wildlife in the verdant natural area, which is about 10 miles south of Salem. The adventure of this hike is not so much a physical challenge, as it is a very easy walk, but rather the challenge is in viewing all the varied forms of living things that make this land their home. 

A slug slowly slithered across the path as I made my way down to the boardwalk, which meanders nearly a mile through the wet, marshy forest. Another trail sign at the beginning of this walkway describes the drastic changes that this area goes through from Oregon’s very rainy winter to its hot dry summer. Those hardy Oregon ash trees, that I now observed submerged in water, would thrive equally as well when much of that water dried out from the sun’s warmth this coming summer. The ash trees have adapted to this change and, with their widespread roots, they have a sturdy foothold in the soil and can soak up the plentiful moisture as they need it. So Oregon ash trees seem to have adapted nicely to a seasonal change that would severely challenge most trees.

With such an abundance of water here, I fully expected to see mosses, liverworts and lichens. What I didn’t know was that they also played a big part in this dance of survival during the seasonal changes.  The informative trail sign also described mosses, liverworts and lichens as soaking water from the air, rather than putting down roots in the soil. As a result, they keep  soil and decaying material, such as dead logs and branches, moist. And this natural process in turn helps to break down organic materials, which creates new rich soil, as the cycle of life continues.

Nature teaches us the importance of adapting to changes in order to survive. And since change is pretty much guaranteed here on planet Earth, it’s something that we would do well to pay attention to. If we move with the changes, instead of resisting the inevitable, and join in that dance of change, of which we are part, perhaps we would better survive also.  We might even thrive, like the hardy Oregon ash!

         ........ another treasure from the trail 

                                       by Carol E. Fairbanks