Mountain Times - Volume 48, Number 21: May 22-28, 2019

Columns
The Mountain Times • May 22-28, 2019 • 33
The Jupiter-
Saturn factor
By Cal Garrison a.k.a. Mother of the Skye
This week’s horoscopes are coming out in the wake of
a Scorpio full moon, otherwise known as “The WESAC
moon.” Entering Sagittarius only four hours after its full
phase on Saturday evening, the moon will remain in
that sign until it crosses the Capricorn cusp, and the sun
enters Gemini, early on Tuesday, May 21.
All of this got me thinking less about Gemini, and more
about Jupiter and Saturn—why? Because Jupiter rules
Sagittarius and Saturn rules Capricorn. These two planetary
frequencies are like night and day. When the moon
shifts from the sign of the Archer to the sign of the goat,
the energy around us flips from one extreme to another.
The following words are excerpted from an essay that I
wrote quite a while ago, called “The evolutionary impact
of Jupiter and Saturn.”
“Out beyond Mars, and inside Chiron’s orbit, Jupiter
and Saturn circle around the sun, midway between the
inner and outer planets. Together, they anchor a unique
polarity that has everything to say about our spiritual
evolution. Because all of the celestial bodies function
in relation to each other, the nature of that polarity and
how it manifests through us individually and collectively
can’t be understood by studying Jupiter and Saturn alone.
Before we can fully appreciate their significance, we need
to know more about how the planets that surround them
operate.
“The inner, or personal planets and the moon move
quickly. When they enter into any aspect the contact is
fleeting, lasting for a few hours and up to a day or two.
These minor transits give birth to the daily shifts, circumstantial
experiences, and subtle changes in attitude that
move us from one day to the next and hopefully prompt
us to question what it’s all for.
“While much of what we undergo at the mundane level
THESE MINOR TRANSITS GIVE
BIRTH TO THE DAILY SHIFTS,
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EXPERIENCES,
AND SUBTLE CHANGES IN
ATTITUDE THAT MOVE US FROM
ONE DAY TO THE NEXT...
seems haphazard and unrelated to anything larger, in this
reality, it is only through experience that we learn our lessons.
If we are paying attention it soon becomes apparent
that the inner planet transits function to provide us with
experiences that teach us what we need to know, one day
at a time. Thus, what appears to be random and inconsequential
is really there to help us dissect who we are
inwardly and what we are creating outwardly well enough
to see that for better or worse, we are sourcing all of it.
“At the opposite end of the planetary spectrum Chiron,
Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto have much longer cycles.
When the outer planets form aspects those contacts last
for years – and the same aspects will not recur for centuries,
in some cases. If the inner planet transits inscribe the
details of our daily script, the outer planets etch trends or
thought forms that have an evolutionary impact on the
culture as a whole. Like four giant interconnected gears,
Chiron, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto move mankind from
one level of consciousness to another. Over time their
sociological impact can be analyzed, but unless they form
an aspect to a personal planet in a birth chart, their effects
are collective and not experienced in a personal way.
“Somewhere in between the personal, daily changes,
and the massive cultural shifts there just so happens to
Mother, page 35
The elusive ‘thunder-pumper’
By Laurie D. Morrissey
Often, when I spot an interesting
bird, I don’t have my binoculars
handy. I’m holding a paddle or a pair
of bicycle handlebars,
which aren’t very helpful
when it comes to birdwatching.
That was the
case during an early-morning
bike ride last summer,
when I noticed a brownish
bird about the size of a
The Outside
Story
chicken standing at the
edge of a farm pond.
I would have liked a
better look, but it was
clearly an American
bittern, scanning for prey against a
backdrop of reeds and cattails.
It was a rare sighting for me,
one I was lucky to have. It’s typically
harder to see this member of
the heron family, since it is much
more secretive than its kin. Living
deep in the marshes, the American
bittern blends in perfectly with the
surrounding vegetation and maneuvers
through the reeds by means of
its laterally compressed body. When
alarmed, it freezes in an upright position,
its neck and yellow bill pointed
skyward. Its marsh grass mimicry is so
good it even sways with the breeze.
Having returned from their wintering
grounds in the south, American
bitterns have taken up residence in
freshwater marshes. Cattail marshes
are their preferred habitat, but they
also turn up in reedy lakes, beaver
ponds, and soggy fields. About ten
inches shorter than a great blue
heron, American bitterns have
streaky brown and white plumage
with black slashes on each
side of their white throats. They
feed while wading, snatching
dragonflies, water striders,
crayfish, frogs, and small fish
and snakes.
Even if you don’t spot
this retiring, solitary bird,
you might hear it. The
male’s low-frequency
breeding call carries far
across the marsh. Most
often heard at dawn or
dusk, it starts out like
the sound of someone
whacking a stake
into the mud. The
bird then inflates
its esophagus
and, raising and
lowering its head,
releases a hollow
pumping sound
that has been
compared with
the sound of
a bellowing
bull, the loud
gulps of a
giant, and
an oldfashioned
washing machine on its last
legs. It’s often described phonetically as
“Onk-ka-chonk!” or “Pump-er-lunk!”
– although it utters a hoarse
“kok-kok-kok” in flight. Its
unusual call has led to a raft of
common names, including
thunder-pumper, waterbelcher,
mire-drum, booming
bittern, Indian hen, bog
bull, meadow hen, and stake
driver.
As nearly invisible as bitterns
are, it’s rare to witness
their breeding behavior. Paul
A. Johnsgard observed courtship
twice: in the 1970s in Wyoming,
and in 2015 in North Dakota. He is a
renowned ornithologist in his late 80s,
the author of more than 50 books on
birds, so you wouldn’t think much could
surprise him. However, he said when
I reached him in his University of Nebraska
office, “I almost literally gasped.
Looking like something out of ‘The
Wizard of Oz,’ the male slowly raised
two snowy white, fan-shaped clusters
of feathers from the scapular feathers
in front of its wings. It was like an extra
pair of small white wings that you’d
never see on the bird at any other time.
It was almost hypnotic. He did this for
about 15 minutes, trying to advance on
the female about 20 yards away.”
One of the most avid local birders
I know has looked for bitterns many
times without success. Another has
seen them in Texas and Florida, but
not the Northeast. However, landscape
and bird painter Cindy House has seen
many in the Sunapee Region of New
Hampshire while scouting for subjects –
and once witnessed the exact behavior
described by Johnsgard.
North America has just one other
kind of bittern: the least bittern, which is
a species of high conservation concern
in the Northeast. This is the smallest
North American heron, about the size
of a mourning dove. Its colors are more
striking than those of its larger cousin,
and it inhabits deeper marshes. It’s not a
boomer; its call is a soft “coo-coo-coo.”
The least bittern weighs a mere three
ounces, and often hunts while grasping
reed stalks with its toes and leaning
down to the water surface. It’s hard to
picture the nine-day-old chick of a bird
so small, but that is the age at which
least bittern chicks leave the nest.
I have yet to see a least bittern, but I’ll
be on the lookout. Next time I go scouting,
though, I might try a kayak instead
of a bike.
Laurie D. Morrissey is a writer in Hopkinton,
New Hampshire. The illustration
for this column was drawn by Adelaide
Tyrol. The Outside Story is assigned and
edited by Northern Woodlands magazine
( northernwoodlands.org) and
sponsored by the Wellborn Ecology Fund
of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation
(wellborn@nhcf.org).