“And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?”

Trumpeters above Kah Tai

 courtesy James Holb

The conflicting visions of what Kah Tai should be may resolve with time, but movement is glacial. So many members of our community still do not understand the LWCF protections for this park. When the public was surveyed in preparation for a 2020 parks plan update, we still heard, “Make a trail all the way around the lagoon at the water’s edge.” For many, the focus is always, all about people. But the park is not about people. It is, in the words of the grant that funded its creation, for “wildlife habitat, with compatible passive recreation”. Habitat first, human access second. And human access does not include water access or even access to all parts of the park. This park is for the birds and other wildlife. And human access must have minimal impact, ie., be passive.

This December, we have had the pleasure of observing Trumpeter swans on the lagoon. Trumpeters are very cautious and will fly with the least provocation. Yet this month, we’ve had recurring visits of a varied cluster of Trumpeters, usually one adult and three or four juveniles. Trumpeters winter in the fields mid-county but have come to the lagoon with some regularity this winter.

This interminable pandemic year has found us all outside, trying to be safe, trying to find some balance in an off-balance world. The benefits of the Japanese concept of shinrin yoku, or forest bathing, are undeniable. Levels of the stress hormone cortisol decrease while the levels of oxytocin increase just by being in nature.

From the late Mary Oliver:

The Swan

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?