Wild Signs and Star Paths: Key #7, The Shear

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 direct my attention to nature, get out and notice things, and find a way to make it matter.

New World

While the task of building signs based on semiotics is very abstract compared to the rest of this book, its execution is fairly simple. All I needed to do was go outside and pay attention. I took to stealing away from my remote desk job for 15-20 minutes in the morning to take a brief walk around my neighborhood. Maybe it’s a sign of poor exposure to nature, but within that short time frame I was able to explore places I’d never been on several different days. These included 1) a berm that I often watch through the window. It overlooks the train tracks, and its bank is home to lots of interesting weeds, gopher holes, insects, and discarded trash. Along the top, there’s a footworn trail, and prickly pear cacti that local Mexican ladies often harvest for food. 2) The salt marsh. I am fortunate to live up against a rare brackish marsh that drains into the ocean. It’s home to tons of species of plants an animals that are found nowhere else for hundreds of miles outside of this small area, and in it I found several places I hadn’t yet explored.

A heron flying low over the water sent up a wave of ripples as fish just beneath the surface dived for cover. The dirt showed where people and animals alike preferred to walk, even in an open expanse. Trees and flowers stretched for the sun. Spider webs along the ground collected morning dew that would evaporate within the hour. These an many more associations filled my walks with wonder, and it hurt to return to work. But when I did, I found I had way more energy than usual, and swept through my morning tasks with a brisk spirit.

In the city, I noticed one particular bush at sunset swarming with little fluttering moths that hadn’t been there before. They took no interest in any other of the man shrubs. Minutes later, while driving, I noticed the same moths, only because I’d just seen them. An association across space and time. My bottom dollar says the blurry bush I was passing was of the same or a very similar species as the other one.

And my big coup of noticing came from the sky. It’s cheating, because I already read The Secret World of Weather by Tristan Gooley, but I clocked more differen types of clouds than I could really sort out, although all were small and in limited scope against a pale blue sky. The wind was blowing on direction at the cirrus level, another were cumulus clouds billowed bright silver off the coast, and yet another at ground. We often get strange cloud formations, but we’re in a drought, and it hardly rains here in the best of years. I told myself that while these were all firm signs of unstable air, quickly-changing weather, and rain, it probably wouldn’t materialize. What little rain we ever get is during the winter. Yet within 5 or 6 hours, a warm front blew through with a light but steady rain and lightning that was, in my Louisianian opinion quite mild, but felt catastrophic to the locals. Should have trusted the signs!

To turn our attention to reading nature, we have to care. One way to do that is simply put it in front of ourselves. Then we notice a connection. Most of mine told me nothing, but they demonstrated some cipher of a relationship, and that was enough to give me a jolt of glee that I’d seen something, and make me want to explore further. Once you notice something, you can’t stop seeing it. These were the first baby steps in a new world, but I made them, and I feel richer for it. It doesn’t take a big trip to an exotic location. The same boring ground our eyes pass over every day is a whole new world if we’re willing to regard it as such.

Key #7: The Shear

When winds blow over a cloud formation, they often shear the tops off—like spray from the top of a wave—in the direction of travel. While staring at a cloud compared to a stationary point can reveal wind direction at altitude within a few seconds, noticing the shear will tell you at a glance. My task this week is to spot which way the clouds shear, if any.