Hallowed: from the Old English halgian "to make holy, sanctify; to honor as holy, consecrate, ordain." (Etymology Online: Hallow)

October is spooky month, when ghosts, witches, skeletons and tombstones are a common front-yard sight. October 31 is Halloween, All Hallows Eve, the night where the separation between living and dead is said to be less defined, more ethereal. In the eerie dark hours, we might imagine the spirits rising from their graves to swirl about, misty figures performing their haunted dance.


​And what of those places where we find graves? Graveyards, cemeteries, memorial parks, burial grounds - what distinguishes one from another? 





​Burial ground is a more general term referring to an area for the burying of dead bodies, an area set apart from the living and a means to honor the dead. It has been thought that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, with their larger brain case, were the first to have the cognitive ability to see the dead as in a different state, engaging in what is known as “funerary behavior,” where rites and burials are performed. Earlier hominin were thought to exhibit  “mortuary behavior,” also displayed by elephants and chimps, where the living try to interact with the dead, as if the dead are not separate. Relatively recent finds in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa have led paleoanthropologists to believe that Homo naledi, with their much smaller brain case, did indeed exhibit funerary behavior by dropping the dead through a narrow opening called “The Chute.” The bones found are dated to 335,000 to 241,000 years ago, pre-dating by more than 100,000 years the prior earliest known burial.  National Geographic: Earliest Human Burial

The word graveyard is from the proto-Germanic words “graban” (to dig) and “gardan” (an enclosed area of land). In the Middle Ages, graveyards, or churchyards, were the areas adjacent to churches for the more common folk to be interred, while the wealthy and influential were often buried in crypts under the church itself. As populations increased, these graveyards became crowded - sometimes layers of burials deep. When many died from disease, graveyards were a centralizing place for the disease, making these places problematic, and actually horrific when floods caused coffins to surface and bodies to spill out. 

Enter the concept of a cemetery, from the Greek word “koimeterion” meaning “resting place.” Cemeteries developed in the U.S. in the 1830’s, and were on neutral ground rather than affiliated with specific churches. They were often located away from city centers, addressing the problem of available space. They tended to have large entrance gates or arches, signifying the separation between the living and the dead. Cemeteries were similar to parks at one point, as public gardens and parks were not yet mainstream. People would visit, picnic and enjoy the day amongst the beautiful grounds and ornate sculpture. Years ago, a couple of my dear clients, a loving husband and wife, told me that their first date was a picnic dinner at a cemetery. It definitely worked for them!

Memorial parks take the concept of distance a step further, often with grave markers flush to the ground for ease of maintenance. Rather than a place to stay awhile, they can be impersonal places with their immaculate lawns devoid of unique headstone decoration.

Personally I’ve always been a fan of graveyards and cemeteries. The more moss on the headstones and the older they were, the better. When I’d visit my grandparents over the summer in Maryland, they indulged my fascination and took me to many a graveyard. The little churchyards, stones marked with just names and dates, told simply and starkly of the deaths of young children or entire families. Some graves were adorned with elaborate sculpture, others with humble headstones, broken and crumbling. There was an occasional (and strange) upheaval of the ground from beneath a marker.

What drew me to these places most of all was a certain feeling. A stalwart oak, with massive trunk and forest-green canopy looming above, offering shade and solace. The permeating silence despite a soft breeze. Below my feet the body of someone who’d once lived, perhaps walked in this same place, a very long time ago. The rough surface of the stone on my fingertips as I’d trace the markings, wondering about their life. The feeling of a distant past touching the present moment, territory both mysterious and sacred. Hallowed ground. 

Sources

• YouTube Video: The Fascinating History of Cemeteries
• Huff Post: Here’s The Difference Between a Cemetery And A Graveyard
• National Geographic: Earliest Human Burial
• The Atlantic: Our First Public Parks: The Forgotten History of Cemeteries

Originally published October 24, 2024

Scritch, scritch. Huff, huff. Scritch, huff, huff, huff. Uhh! Oooof!!!
That’s me trotting down the trail, hitting a rock with one toe and finding myself all fours, having yanked my upper hamstrings but good. I take in the browns, yellows and dark oranges and burgundys of the crunchy leaves under my body. I take a breath. Nothing is broken, I can still hobble along. I dust off my gloved hands and running tights, and move on. 

I’m here on Emerald Mountain because of the deal I made with myself when hiking the Colorado Trail (CT) last July with my daughter. (The CT Part I and The CT Part II.) As I dragged up and down Thirteeners carrying more weight than I wanted to in my pack, I fantasized about the good ole days of doing Ironman - after all, that was just a one day thing. I didn’t have to get up each morning, unrecovered from the day before, and do it all over again, like I was doing on the CT. 

The CT experience taught me a lot. My top lessons: 
1) Charlotte has the patience of Job and the attitude of sunshine.
2) I can do more than I think I can - albeit more slowly than I think I should. 
I came off the CT ready for a one-day goal, and decided on the Run Through Time Trail Marathon in Salida this coming March. With Charlotte, of course.

This may not seem like a lofty goal to some - but for me, it is. My training has two components: increasing mileage (doable over time), and more time on trails (daunting). 

Years ago I did some trail training, but after a fall resulting in pain and tingling in my hands and wrists, I threw in the towel. I was scared of getting hurt again, so I stopped running trails. In hindsight, I can see that my life got smaller because of that fear and the choice I made. 

I started to address that fear and live a bit larger last March when Charlotte and I ran the Run Through Time Trail Half-Marathon - when crossing the finish line, I had completed my first trail race. However, the training for that half-marathon was on snowy roads. So when I committed to the full marathon, I committed to running on Emerald. It was time to face my fear.

When I headed up those trails on the last weekend in August, it was my first time to run Emerald in a decade. I made it to the top and was proud. But making it through the run without crashing and burning was my #1 point of pride. And though I’ve crashed since then, I continue to run Emerald. I just have to focus and use my core to lift those feet a little higher! Because being up there is worth the risk.

Running on Emerald Mountain is special. 

On Emerald, there is the sense of my body moving along the undulating trail. There is the sight of the sun climbing, beaming down on the aspen: shiny golden fountains erupting out of long white trunks. There is the effort of hoofing it uphill, lungs puffing white clouds into the chill fall morning, and the contrasting warmth of the day at the top. The fun of cruising along switchbacks that double back on themselves, ducking under tree limbs that twist across the trail, blackened and grasping, like something out of Snow White’s enchanted wood. 

In an ideal world, I would spend most of my day, every day, running those trails. But, since there are things like life, and work, and the injury I mentioned in the first paragraph, resulting in time spent healing, running up there isn’t a daily occurrence. So I keep running on Emerald in my heart and mind most days, and savor the time when I actually get to run there. Do I float to the top, fly like the wind up or down the trail? No. Some days are hard going, and I’m challenged to put one foot in front of the other. But running on Emerald is the best, even on the worst days.

Emerald Mountain - More Than A Gem (Part 2 0f 3)
Emerald: A Singularly Satisfying Run (Part 3 of 3)

​One afternoon this past spring my parents and I were enjoying the fresh air and warm sunshine in the wooded canyon behind their Little Red Cabin, known in the family as the LRC. We came upon the hooped tree pictured above. Wow! We hadn’t noticed it on previous hikes, and it seemed rather magical. How did this happen?

It is possible that one side of that particular branch was damaged, and did not grow at the same rate as the other side, creating the asymmetry that caused the branch to grow back towards the ground. Another possibility is that that low branch was weighted by snow long enough that the branch did not resume growing skyward. It continued to grow downward, causing the bend in the main trunk before the tree righted itself to grow straight up once again.

My research did not turn up a definitive reason for the hooped branch of our tree. Regardless of the cause, this hoop - and what I found poking around online -  is a testament to the resilience and tractability of trees. 

Trees have three main parts: crown, trunk and roots. The trunk conducts nutrients, the foliage on the branches (boughs or twigs) conducts photosynthesis, and the roots provide nutrients from the soil. All parts of the tree grow: roots, branches and trunk, and are quite versatile over time and with necessity. I found this article’s illustrated trunk cross-section interesting:  Arborist Now.com: The Basic Anatomy of a Tree

Roots have hair-like projections which serve to stimulate growth in the current direction, or stop growth if an obstacle is encountered. The root hairs accomplish this by a protein at their tip; this protein causes uptake of calcium for growth, and the cycle continues. The roots can grow out to a distance twice the height of the tree. If the root hairs hit an object, the calcium uptake - and thus the growth - come to a halt. All About Trees.com: Trees Can Grow Around Obstacles

Edaphoecotropism, also known as “stress avoidance” is the ability of living tissues to grow around things. The engulfing occurs as the roots and woody tissue of the tree grow towards areas of least stress, thus surrounding or “eating” the item. The objects do not hurt the tree; in fact some articles indicate that the incorporated objects help strengthen the tree.

Here are some amazing photos of objects like trucks and fences swallowed by trees: Scenic Hudson.org: Trees that Eat Things. My favorite from this article is the bike tree. A young man headed off to World War I left his bike against the tree, but never retrieved the bike. The tree, in its edaphoecotropic (according to Google this word does not exist, I believe it should) manner, grew up and around the bike, so that the bike is now well above the ground, a part of the tree.

I loved the playset in my grandparent’s backyard in Glen Burnie, Maryland, between two towering oak trees. It had a slide that the squirrels would careen down over and over, having a marvelous time. It also had a swing. Long before my time, and the ends of the pole to which the swing was attached had been stuck in the oak trunks. Over time the trunks had grown around and onto the pole a few inches - there’s that edaphoecotropism again. The trees growing like this was a wonder to me, and I never tired of looking at those guardian oaks keeping my swing safe.


Sources/Learn More

• Arborist Now.com: The Basic Anatomy of a Tree
• All About Trees.com: Trees Can Grow Around Obstacles
• Scenic Hudson.org: Trees that Eat Things

The first time I saw “Halloween,” John Carpenter’s 1978 groundbreaking horror flick (it banked a whopping $70 million on a measly $325,000 production budget), it was on VHS, and I was hosting a slumber party with my gang of 8th-grade besties. We were all lined up inches from the TV, hanging on the edges of our sleeping bags, when my dad snuck up on us to blare the condor horn. He says it was the original wave, as, one at a time, each girl a fraction of a second behind the one next to her, peeled back from the blast in screaming in sheer terror. To this day, when hearing even the first notes of the main “Halloween” theme, I get the good kind of chills. 

Why is this? Do people like to get scared? 
Yes, we like to be scared, as long as there are parameters: we know we are not truly in danger, we have some say (we can leave the haunted house or hide behind the couch during the VHS movie 🫣), and we’re in the sweet spot of being somewhat scared but not absolutely terrified. 
​
These days, for example, I accelerate from scared to terrified in the space of one two-minute horror film trailer. The last trailer I watched gave me nightmares for a week. Sad, but true.

A few reasons why we like to be scared:

1. Brain chemicals. Initial stimulus creates that fight or flight, releasing adrenaline and epinephrine, producing alertness. Following the scare, when your brain has determined that you are not in true danger, endorphins and dopamine sweep in, resulting in a bit of euphoria.
2. Psychological. When we make it through a scary movie or haunted house, we feel that we’ve overcome a challenge. And, interestingly, according to this Guardian article, horror fans surveyed during the Covid pandemic demonstrated greater psychological resilience than their non-horror-fan counterparts. We might also find that a frightening flick allows us to explore the darker side of life without actually having to go there ourselves.
3. Social bonding. When we go through a scare and the euphoric aftermath in the company of others, we associate that feel-good response with the other people.  
4. Learning. The Guardian article also discusses the idea that frightening tales and films offer perspective on our collective fears. Think of stories told to children to teach of the dangers of people or animals out to do us harm. Think of the films depicting the aftermath of nuclear war ("The Day After"), the takeover of machines ("Terminator"), and wars with aliens ("War of the Worlds," "Independence Day").

I would also offer the idea that we may like spooky stories because we don’t know it all. These stories may offer glimmers of possible explanations. And I think intrigue is something most of us find compelling. 

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
-William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”

Learn more
​Article: The Guardian, “Why We Enjoy Fear…”

​
Originally published October, 2022

The tints of autumn...a mighty flower garden blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost.
John Greenleaf Whittier, American Quaker poet, advocate for the abolition of slavery, best-remembered for his anti-slavery writings

*****
“The colors are brighter when we’ve had a drought.” “Color is best with lots of rain.” “Oh, the colors start when it freezes.” “It has something to do with the angle of the sun.” “The trees just know.” 

Having heard these and many more conflicting theories on the fall leaves in past weeks, I thought it was high time I read up on the matter. Here are a few things I learned.

Deciduous leaves are luscious with the green of chlorophyll during spring and summer, their growing season. In the process of photosynthesis, the chlorophyll absorbs sunlight’s energy to transform carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and sugar, thus providing the majority of food for the plant.

In the fall, shorter days and cooler temperatures signal the end of food production, so the chlorophyll begins to break down. As the chlorophyll fades, the colorful carotenoid and anthocyanin chemicals already present in the leaf are no longer hidden by the intense green. Carotenoid pigments, also found in corn, carrots, pumpkin and tomatoes, are yellow, brown, red and orange. The red, blue and purple pigments of anthocyanin can also be found in berries, grapes, and red apples.

Since the tissues of tree leaves are tender and can’t survive cold winters, the leaves are dropped. In this process a layer of cells forms where the leaf stem attaches to the tree. This seals off the leaf, and when the leaf eventually drops those cells have sealed the cut on the tree. This is known as a leaf scar.

Most of us will gather up our piles of leaves to keep things tidy. Or to stuff giant plastic pumpkin bags in preparation for Trick or Treat. But those fallen leaves are vital to the health of the forest floor. They break down, adding nutrients to the soil and help provide the sponginess to absorb moisture.

Here’s the lowdown on leaf color:

• Temperature and moisture are the main influences.
• Yellows and golds are fairly constant from year to year.
• The combination of warm days and cool (not freezing) nights causes the sugars (anthocyanins) to build in the leaves, to give the most brilliant reds and purples - and these vary from year to year.
• Some moisture, especially in spring, can boost colors in the fall, but some sources say too much rain can lessen color intensity.

My favorite takeaway is that each autumn is unique in terms of color. With so many variables in temperature and moisture throughout spring, summer and fall, the colors are amazing in their own way each year. 

As I write this, I’m looking out my office window at a large tree branch covered in…dead brown leaves. Hmm. Perhaps not so amazing. But I notice how the evergreen in front of the less-than-lovely leaves is a beautiful deep green in contrast. I also think what a satisfying crunch those brown leaves would offer underfoot. They, too, make their own contribution to these gorgeous - and fleeting - fall days.


More Info
Smithsonian: Why do leaves change color in the fall?
David Domoney video: Why Do Leaves Change Color in Autumn?

Originally published September 2022