In her book, Radical Joy for Hard Times, Trebbe Johnson wrote “…each place possesses its own particular presence, a dynamic animate force that the Romans called the genius loci, or soul of the place. The personality of this genius loci is formed by the entire human and natural history of the place and continues to express itself in the kinds of experiences people have there.”

As I read this passage I knew that I had to return to my home sit spot along the shoreline of Prompton Lake, the spot I had visited once a week for a full year, a spot that I thought I knew well. But now, I wondered. Perhaps I had missed something. Perhaps there was a spirit of the place yet to be known.

5:58 a.m.                                    Struggle

Fully awake, eyes open, first hints of daylight visible outside the window. Yet I lay in bed paralyzed by inertia. Why was it always so hard to get up for a sunrise sit spot even when I knew that it was good for me and knew that I would enjoy it?

Last night I had written off the idea the idea of a morning sit spot; too tired, too much to do. Now I was ready to roll over and drift back asleep, but then decided to check the forecast one last time. The sunny icon told me that clear skies and bright sunshine awaited me at Prompton.

Plus, I had my mission to try and discover the genius loci. I knew that if I didn’t follow through on this self-assigned mission, there would be little peace within, only a restless itch that would eventually grow into a welter of self-disapproval. I got up.

Minutes later, waiting for my tea to steep, gazing out the kitchen window into the dim light I saw a rabbit peacefully munching grass in the yard. I heard tik, tik, tik contact calls of a pair of cardinals and the bright, clear teakettle, teakettle, teakettle song of a Carolina wren.

Nature was awake and engaged. I thought how much I missed by sleeping in. I made a tentative self-promise to strive for a more nature synchronous schedule, more of a Ben Franklin early to bed, early to rise lifestyle.

6:35 a.m.                                     Mist

As I walked across the boat ramp parking lot I glanced at Prompton Lake. Wispy, tiny, cottony tufts of mist floated above the still water, a type of mist I had never seen before.

Stepping onto the West Shore Trail I felt welcomed by familiar landmarks; the stone slab bridge, the grove of slender ash saplings, a stretch of abandoned stone wall, and the wet rocks of the ever-flowing seep. My feet, familiar with the route, turned off the trail and guided me through the woods to the peninsula, the site of my home sit spot.

6:52 a.m.                               Same/Different

I set up my camp stool beneath the big angled branch of the big black cherry tree, settled in and began to listen; first to the nearby sounds and then to ever wider circles of sound further and further away.

Much that I heard was familiar. Catbirds called whiny mews from multiple spots around the peninsula. A kingfisher chattered loudly as it flew along the shoreline. A great blue heron squawked hoarsely as it flapped out of a nearby tree. Further away, across the lake, a blue jay called a strident jay, jay, jay and still further away two crows with different voices called caw, caw, caw back and forth. A jetliner whispered high above through the dim, pale-blue sky; a car whooshed down Creek Road.

Looking around I saw much that was familiar, but also noticed changes that had occurred since my year of weekly observations back in 2013-14. Where there had been two tiny ash saplings next to my sit spot, now there was only one. The survivor has grown, stood six feet tall with long leafy branches that stretched toward an opening in the forest canopy.

The pattern of tree debris had changed too. Old ones had collapsed down to the forest floor to be consumed by insects, to rot slowly away, to return to the earth. New branches and limbs and trees had fallen. A new geometry of angles and forms of branches and trunks had arisen. Perhaps a blend of “continuity and change” was the spirit of the place.

7:03 a.m.                            A Shift in Perspective

I lost track of time and went beyond the ten minute interval. This was good I thought. I was being pulled into nature around me. The idea sprang to mind to turn my camp stool 90 degrees to the right so that I could look up the lake and toward the shoreline. During my year I had always faced into the woods, but now the voice of intuition was urging me to shift my view. I knew enough to listen.

As soon as I turned I was reward by another view of the mist floating above the lake, diaphanous wispy strands slowly swirling, stirring, and drifting. I also saw two maple trees near the shoreline covered with orange leaves, harbingers of autumn, heralds of change. 

There was something poignant about these orange cloaked maples surrounded by trees still draped in the rich greens of summer, something that made me think about a final burst of beauty preceding change, an annual flash of glory preceding the long, albeit temporary, gray, cold death of impending winter. The word perennial, the idea of continually recurring cycles came to mind. Perhaps “perennial” was the spirit of this place.

7:13 a.m.                           The Trident Tree

I studied the lumpy elevated ground of the peninsula, disturbed earth that had been dug and moved and piled during the construction of Prompton Dam in the late 1950’s. The old stone walls coursing through the woods told a story of cleared farm fields and pastures that predated the building of the dam.

And before the farms my location was probably a spot along the bank of the meandering Lackawaxen River, a spot where a trail coursed, a trail formed by the paws and hooves of native animals and the feet of Native Americans, a trail subsequently followed by explorers, trappers and hunters.

The trail would have wound through virgin forest, a forest that had been clear cut by the settlers. Then, whatever trees grew back had been scraped clear again during the construction of the dam.

But over the last half century the forest had regrown, and was now a diverse wooded landscape of maple, ash, cherry, birch, oak, beech, hemlock and pine.

My gaze fell upon a tall cherry tree with a big branch curving off about ten feet above the ground and then growing vertically. Higher up the trunk split again. The result was three parallel trunks growing straight and tall and topped by three umbrellas of leaves. It was a trident tree.

I wondered if it had an adaptive advantage with its triple trunks to carry water up and nutrients down and its three bouquets of leaves to capture the sunlight.

To my left, in a small open area, an area that I had always thought would be a good place to camp for the night; grew two goldenrods topped with sprays of butter yellow blossoms. Normally, wildflowers of the fields, these goldenrods seized the opportunity offered by this small open spot.

As I looked at the regrown forest, the adaptive trident tree, and the opportunistically flowering goldenrods the word resilience came to mind. Yes, I thought. “Resilience” must be the spirit of this place.

7:24 a.m.                                  Sunlight

A woodpecker flew in and landed on the trunk of a tall ash tree in front of me. I had a clear view and could study it in action. It was a medium sized bird and it used its adapted claws (two toes forward and two back) along with its stiff tail feathers to easily maintain a vertical position on the trunk. I could see its head move like a feathered piston, tap, tap-tap, tap-tap-tap against the bark. It paused, cocked its head, looked at the tree as if it was carefully inspecting it, scuttled a foot to the left and again tap, tap, tapped as it probed with its chisel beak for insects and caterpillars.

It moved down and tapped again, softly this time; a surprise, different intensities of taps. It deftly climbed up a foot and scooted to the right where the first sunbeams of the morning illuminated its plumage; white back, black and white wings, a jaunty spot of red on the back of its head, a male hairy woodpecker.

The bird lingered on the tree and I watched its deft maneuvers, heard its taps, loud and soft, and marveled at its timeless focus.

The canopy of leaves above the woodpecker was now fully illuminated by the rays of the rising sun, a myriad of rich green leaves against a pale blue sky, a hypnotic and transporting view. As the sunlight increased and inched down the tree trunks, the morning bird chorus grew in volume and intensity; cardinals called tik, tik, tik, catbirds mewed, chickadees sang, a kingfisher chattered, a goldfinch warbled its lilting per-chik-o-ree. In the periphery of my vision a great blue heron flapped in, squawked, and landed gracefully in a shoreline tree. I could see the branch sway softly up and down with the weight of the heron.

I was surrounded by luminous spreading sunshine, immersed in an exuberant bird chorus, and witness to a woodpecker beginning its day. I felt enveloped in an aura of new day euphoria, felt jolts of new day joy; felt a spectator to the celebration of this new day.

Ah, I thought. Perhaps the daily promise of a “new beginning” and all that it implied was the spirit of this place

7:33 a.m.                                      Stories

The sunlight spread down the trees and shone upon the surface of the lake. I felt a breeze touch my cheek. The two goldenrods swayed slightly back and forth. On the lake the wisps of mist, taller now, all flowed to the south pushed by the breeze.

Looking around I noticed that the low leaves of the shoreline shrubs were moving, but the high leaves at the top of the trees were motionless.

I figured this must a low breeze, a lake breeze, a little breeze created by the sunlight warming the water just enough to lift the air, to create circulation. If so, it was the first time I had observed such a breeze.

I watched a single orange-red maple leaf slowly helicopter down, floating back and forth until it landed in front of me, a freshly fallen leaf alighting on the partially composted layer of last year’s leaves. When I scraped the ground with my heel I saw layers of more fully composted leaves merging into crumbly dark soil.

The story of the low wind, the story of the leaves falling and turning into soil, the story of the morning woodpecker, these were all stories that taught and entertained. Perhaps “story telling” was the spirit of this place.

I remembered that Trebbe Johnson had also written that …”landscapes are eager informants, not only able, but willing to impart a great deal of information to attentive humans.”

7:42 a.m.                                  Calls

It was the last ten minutes of my hour long sit spot. My mind began to picture the warm comforts of a local bistro where I could join my friends for a steaming Americano and a tasty toasted bagel stuffed with a fried egg and a thick slice of Canadian bacon. I laughed at myself, amused at how easily my mind drifted to the future, to thoughts and images of comfort.

I gently brought my attention back to my surroundings, to the sunlight dappled green and orange leaves, to the tufts of mist floating across the water. I spotted a spider web, flossy and white, backlit by sunlight. A red squirrel, its fur a shiny auburn in the morning light, scampered down a tree trunk, rustled through the leaves and began to forage for nuts and seeds.

I listened again to the bird chorus and detected a high-pitched, trilled zeee, zeee, zeee, the song of cedar waxwings. Scanning the trees I spotted four of them perching and then sallying out from a shore line birch, darting into the air, snatching flying insects.

I felt as if I was blending in to the setting. A nearby chickadee sang its sprightly chick-a-dee-dee-dee again and again. As had happened on the last day of my year at Prompton the chickadee seemed to be talking to me, telling me, “don’t leave, stick around, there is more to show you.”

Maybe the spirit of this place was about relationships, the relationships between nature and humans. Maybe time in nature restored biophillia, the love for nature, the nature from which we emerged and to which we are joined.

7:52 a.m.                                    Reunions

My hour was up and I was starting to think that the spirit of a place wasn’t a single thing. I had perceived many aspects during my hour; continuity and change, perennial cycles, resilience, new beginnings, story-telling, and a sense of relationship. Most likely someone else would have experienced different aspects of the genius loci.

I stood up and walked over to the shoreline to snap pictures of the lake and the distant dam. Climbing down the bank I was surprised to spot a cluster of stunning, bright blue flowers. I knew right away that these were closed gentian, late-blooming, rarely-seen, woodland wildflowers, flowers that had so impressed me during Week 29 of my year at Prompton. It felt like a reunion, a joyful reunion with an old friend.

Pictures taken I departed the peninsula walking through a patch of sunlit lacy leafed ferns. I heard an unusual sound, a deep purring rattle. I paused, listened and then heard a rollicking, overlapping mish-mash of jays, queedles, screeks, and squeaks. I knew these sounds came from a flock of blue jays engaging in a mysterious type of group song fest. I had heard a similar jazzy concert during Week 38 of my year a Prompton. This felt like another reunion, another rekindling of past joy.

The jays flew away in a flurry of jay, jay, jay calls. I continued my walk back feeling at a loss to explain what these reunions, these experiences that seemed far beyond the realm of coincidence, said about the spirit of the place.

Then, as my feet stepped steadily down the trail, it occurred to me that these reunions were part of the answer to my question. Somehow, during my year of observation, my presence week after week, my hours of observation, I had in some small way been joined to the spirit of this place.

This sit spot took place at Prompton Lake State Park on September 9, 2019.

Here is more information on Trebbe Johnson’s thoughtful, beautifully written, information packed, and inspiring book:

Johnson, Trebbe. Radical Joy for Hard Times: Finding Meaning and Making Beauty in Earth’s Broken Places. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Book, 2018. The quotes above came from pages 128-129.