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This series is an exploration of the works of Tristan Gooley. I’ll document my efforts to learn to read nature’s signs. If you enjoy reading, I encourage you to support the author by purchasing a copy of Wild Sings and Star Paths (UK) or The Nature Instinct (US). I’m in no way affiliated with the author, nor do I profit from sales of the book.
Last Week’s Work
To notice the Tick, the sunny southern preference of certain trees in open expanses; and the Hunter, the path of Orion and the way it reveals east and west. Additionally, I intended to notice the principles underlying these two signs. What objects betray direction by orienting to the source of their preference? What constantly moving objects show direction by their line of travel?
New World
It was a week of overcast evenings, so I failed to spot Orion at all. Few stars broke the blanket. Luckily, we’ll return to this sign soon, and I’m sure he’ll be back on the eastern horizon right on schedule as soon as it clears up. For now, we’ll have to settle for this illustration.
The tick was much livelier. The majority of the trees I observed showed no such trend, or at least not strong enough for me to pick out. For starters, you have to be directly east or west of the tree to see the shape, and a great many trees in my field of vision lie in some other direction My travels didn’t bring me to the correct side. There were also a fair number of species that don’t reveal this sign very well. I’m sure that conifers and palm trees do orient to the sun, but it’s subtle and will take more work to suss out. Then there were environmental factors to confound me. I have to observe these signs in the course of my daily life, which mean most of the trees I saw were urban or near developed areas. I didn’t make it into the backcountry. Any time a tree stands on someone’s property, or borders a road, powerline, etc., I have to take into account that its shape may be the result of human pruning rather than preference. There’s also a lot of shade cast by buildings and other trees to account for. After all, the preference is for sunlight, not “south”. Finally, I saw some trees strongly biased in a generally southerly direction, but I had to exclude them because they were on a south-facing slope and may have been tilted by gravity.
That said, I did find a number of beautiful examples. I’ll note that the check mark shape is really found in the branches, not the leaves. Leaves orient their surfaces to the light. It helped that I know what direction south is, in order to confirm the effect. This series would probably be a lot better with a few photos, but I don’t own a smartphone, or a camera. Maybe I’ll figure something out. In lieu of that, an image search for “tree in field,” “tree in meadow,” etc. can yield some decent practice opportunities. Most will be the wrong angle, or the wrong species, but I found a bunch of decent examples. Here’s one of a tree that has probably shed its leaves for winter, making the branch pattern easy to see.
There really is a constellation of factors that line up to produce this sign. An unbiased tree has to orient toward the direction of greatest light, and the observer has to be perpendicular to the tree and the line created by the two, forming a right angle for the best effect. Then he can close the triangle and find south. The many thins that can throw off the effect remind me that this is a sign best used to confirm a direction, or it should be observed in a number of different trees that agree with one another. More data yields more accuracy.
I had a lovely week of noticing all the plants that aligned to the light, regardless of the direction. While it’s no good for navigating, people do the same. They face what interests them. A subtler clue is their feet. Often a person will turn their feet toward their departure while finishing up a conversation, betraying their intent to leave. If being chased, we might look over our shoulders, but our feet are very reliable indicators of our preferred direction of travel. I didn’t spot any clues that give accurate cardinal directions besides the tick effect.
The transit effect, which is what we use with Orion, was much better. That’s because the local freeway, though it does bend, runs on an east-west axis, titled to slightly ESE-WNW. So any time I can see the tops of trucks moving by, even without seeing the freeway, I have a reliable sense of direction. The same is true of the train tracks, parallel to the freeway. If I hear the whistle blow directly in my right ear, I am facing either north or south, depending on orientation—a nice sonic cue! And listening to the doppler effect of the train passing gives me the full east-west line, though there’s no way to tell whether the train came from the east or the west without another clue.
Key #3: The Sun Anvil
Every day the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Along its path, it hammers direction into us with burning determination. In Gooley’s metaphor, we are the anvil, and it should be as easy to ignore direction as it is to ignore a blow to the head, repeated all day long. Yet we do. At least, I manage. Most people know where the sun rises and sets, but when asked what direction they’re facing, it takes at least a minute of calculating, if they ever get it at all. If we want to not just know direction but “see” it, we can take a clue from the sun.
My assignment this week is to pay attention to the sun in the sky. The easiest thing in the world. But not in a calculating manner. I will just let its rays hit me, let the shadows stretch and shorten and stretch again as they turn, and take it all in. I’ve gone weeks and months without every noting the sun’s position, I’m sure. This week, I should note it every chance I get, and let it beat its message into my thick skull until direction emerges without a thought.
