http://faerye.net/tag/seasonPosts tagged with "season" - Faerye Net2011-12-03T15:54:36+00:00Felicity Shouldershttp://faerye.net/http://faerye.net/post/frozenFrozen2011-12-03T15:54:36+00:002012-01-03T16:52:35+00:00<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfws_alaska/5165071314/" title="Polar bear cubs. by USFWSAlaska, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1327/5165071314_2338c79544.jpg" width="500" height="328" border="0" alt="Polar bear cubs."></a></center>
<p>So <a href="http://wonko.com">Ryan</a> and I have been watching <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mfl7n" target="links"><em>Frozen Planet</em></a>, and I realize I may be a little obsessed.</p>
<p>For example, when describing to a hapless class of high school sophomores the other day how language and the exchange of stories allows us to create continuous culture, I said otherwise we would have to learn everything from scratch, “like baby polar bears emerging from a snow den for the first time.” Because, you know, that was the obvious metaphor?</p>
<p>Or how I drive along thinking about narwhal traffic jams. Or I look at my friends’ dogs and think about how odd it was someone looked at those terrible wolves slavering along after caribou or bison and thought, “I want one of <em>those</em> in my house!”</p>
<p>I think it’s the focused nature of this special that makes it stick so much in my mind: not <em>what</em> it’s about so much as that it’s about one thing. The <em>Planet Earth</em> series was a collection of dazzling and fascinating sights, but so different they didn’t leave an overall impression save that of majesty and variety. This is a symphony with overarching themes. It leaves you looking about you for the cycles in your own life, in humans: the frozen winter that gives way, all of a sudden, to a brief, frenetic period of creation and growth. I think how important it is to seize those moments of sunwarmed opportunity and beauty; but also to know that they will, like the summer sun, always come again.</p>http://faerye.net/post/its-here-its-really-hereIt's here! It's really here!2005-11-04T12:57:23+00:002008-06-09T18:06:56+00:00<p>Autumn is here! It’s pouring and blowing, and even occasionally <em>pelting</em> and <em>wuthering</em>! The grey sky and the silhouettes of trees are shimmering on the wet ground, the world is a constant susurrating drumroll, and every now and then the wind bustles through and rips the leaves away from their swaying branches. No more half-measures and drizzly gestures, this is fall. It has come!</p>