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Nature Seeker

March 2. Invisible spirits playing water tag - To Lupine Hill and Sudbury River

Updated: Jan 14

March 2, 1860. 2 P.M. Thermometer 50. ….

There is a strong westerly wind to-day, though warm, and we sit under Dennis's Lupine Promontory, to observe the water. The great phenomenon these days is the sparkling blue water, a richer blue than the sky ever is. ....

There is the tawny earth (almost completely bare) of different shades...; and, in the hollows of it, set round by the tawny hills and banks, is this copious living and sparkling blue water of various shades. It is more dashing, rippling, sparkling, living, this windy but clear day; never smooth, but ever varying in its degree of motion and depth of blue as the wind is more or less strong, rising and falling. .... Ever and anon the wind seems to drop down from over the hill in strong puffs, and then spread and diffuse itself in dark fan-shaped figures over the surface of the water. It is glorious to see how it sports on the watery surface. You see a hundred such nimble-footed puffs drop and spread on all sides at once, and dash off, sweeping the surface of the water for forty rods in [a] few seconds, as if so many invisible spirits were playing tag there. ....

Then the wind blows with stronger gust down the Nut Meadow valley on our right, and I am surprised to see that the billows which it makes are concentric curves apparently reaching round from shore to shore of this broad bay, forty rods wide or more:

This is conspicuously the form of them. For which two things may account, the greater force of the wind in the middle and the friction of the shores. And when it blows hardest, each successive billow (four or five feet apart or more) is crowned with yellowish or dirty- white foam. The wind blows around each side of the hill, the opposite currents meeting perchance, or it falls over the hill. ..... Sometimes the wind visibly catches up the surface and blows it along and about in spray four or five feet high. Now and then, when the gust increases, there comes a top of fly-away grass from over the hill, goes dancing over the waves, and soon is lost. The requisites are high water mostly clear of ice, ground bare and sufficiently dry, weather warm enough, and wind strong and gusty; then you may sit or stand on a hill and watch this play of the wind with the water. I know of no checker-board more interesting to watch. The wind, the gusts, comb the hair of the water- nymphs. You never tire of seeing it drop, spread, and sweep over the yielding and sensitive surface. .... I see a row of white pines, too, waving and reflecting their silvery light.

-H.D.T.


Sudbury River on a windy, frigid day from Lupine Promontory behind Emerson Hospital in Concord, Massachusetts.

March 2, 2021.

At 19 degrees with a 32 mph westerly wind, estimated to be -1 degrees with the wind chill, the cold is excruciating. Nonetheless, the wind today is near perfect to see what Thoreau did on this calendar day from Lupine Promontory, the approximate location of which now is the parking lot behind Emerson Hospital. While Thoreau had 50 degree temperatures to luxuriate and relish in the details of the wave activity on the Sudbury, my stop is shorter, more efficient.

The Sudbury River to the south off the platform is a deep rich blue in comparison to the paler sky. I see through my binoculars, the ice-filled meadow where Nut Meadow Brook empties out into the river from the west. In the far distance toward Hubbard’s Bridge the water glistens. But this moment is all about the wave activity, very much as described by Thoreau - concentric, wide sweeping waves that whip furiously and rapidly across the river from the west. The variability of the wind moves the waves in various directions, but generally from west to east, and intermittently from north to south. Periodically, a spray is whipped up into the air from a more violent gust. As Thoreau observes, invisible, magic spirits do seem at play. Tall pines to my right sway wildly with the gusts and leaves fly past me toward the water. The scene is very exciting and mesmerizing! If it weren’t for the cold and my shaking hands as I film, I would linger for some time.

With some extra time, I walk via Mattison Field along the path to the Sudbury River's edge just upstream of Nut Meadow. On route, I examine the various tawny shades of the earth underneath the tall pines, which sway in the wind, and I feel some nervousness of potential falling limbs. Unlike Thoreau's spring-like day with open flooded meadows, the scene along the Sudbury today is full-on winter, with frozen meadows. Down low, the rich, dark blue of the river stands out even more starkly against the white ice, tawny deciduous shoreline and paler blue sky. The waves here are harder to see, diminished in appearance with the great distance and my non-elevated location. The fury of the wind fuels a ferocious cold that bites and racks my nerves. I feel very awake and awed by the power of the elements.


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