A deluge struck California over the holidays. With almost daily downpours, my rain gauge recorded thirteen inches in less than two weeks. Trees fell. Cables snapped. Thousands lost power. For a while, our neighborhood became an island, with roads flooded in every direction. During a typical winter, rain collects in shallow depressions in the land, called vernal ponds. This year entire fields turned to lakes.
It’s a dance as old as the tides. Long before whales sang or seabirds wheeled through salty air, forests rose from the seafloor, unfurling blades toward the sun. Over eons, kelp evolved exquisite ways to bend to the sea’s rhythms, but its ballet is no mere performance. With stipes stretching up to 100 feet or more, kelp forests produce oxygen, store carbon, prevent coastal erosion and shelter a vast array of marine life.
These vital ecosystems now face unprecedented threats. As ocean waters warm and voracious grazers like purple sea urchins multiply, California’s lush kelp forests have declined by up to 90 percent. Pushed to the brink, kelp is altering its choreography.
In Greek mythology Iris, goddess of rainbows, carried messages along multi-colored arcs from deities on high to the underworld. Every Spring her namesake blooms usher in a cavalcade of wildflowers that splash shimmering colors upon the earth. Their gifts extend far beyond beauty. In addition to attracting pollinators that ensure survival of their species, Spring’s living rainbows enrich the environment in distinctive ways.
They appear like mirages in the dark of winter, burst into full-throated glory in Spring and fade away with the summer sun. Vernal ponds remind me of Brigadoon, the Scottish village in the classic musical that comes to life for one day every hundred years. The first time I came upon a gleaming pond in a field that had been dry just weeks before, I was as stunned as if a bag-pipe-playing Highlander had suddenly materialized.
I’ve looked at redwoods from both sides now. For decades I lived amid, hiked through and gazed up at northern California’s iconic trees. But it wasn’t until I ziplined to their heights that I realized that they are citizens of sky as well as earth, rooted in soil but soaring into the heavens.
