In his Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean, Jonathan White considers the theories that tides are the result of not only cosmic but of microcosmic forces: “Everything is in flux, he says. “Tides are reactions of the sea to the position of the moon and the sun. Tides are also waves that are formed from the vibration of the cosmos. Everything in the universe has a natural tendency to vibrate: flowers, wind, steel, planets, mountains, the inside of an ear."
Now by the middle of Deep Summer, those vibrations create an advancing tide of chicory, Queen Anne's lace, great mullein, milkweed, pokeweed, black-eyed Susans, butterfly weed, tall nettle, blue vervain, horseweed, teasel, velvetleaf, wingstem, small-flowered agrimony, bull thistle, tick trefoil and burdock.
So all of this tide of vibrations is happening while I sit on the back porch on this day in July, and it seems I am simply watching a day in July.
Except for the quivering leaves on the maple trees, and the birds flying back and forth to the feeders, my vision is static.
But I know that the fixed image of what I see is only one frame in the chaos of countless frames and that I am traveling on the “vibration of the cosmos” on a wave so vast it seems to be motionless and formless but actually rolls around the universe taking everything, including me and all the flowers, with it.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the fourth week of Deep Summer. In the meantime, sit outside. Roll around the universe with the tide.
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