Week 32: Dog Days, Horace, Heraclitus

Cover Image. Illustration of the Constellation Sirius, with text. From The Harley Aratus (c. 820-840). Rheims, France. From the British Library, Harley Collection. Waning Crescent Moon; 46 Days to...

Week 31: Butterfly Weed, Paul Muldoon, Nathaniel Lord Britton

Cover Image. William Clark, “Asclepias tuberosa. Tuberous Swallow-wort.” From Richard Morris, Flora Conspicua: A Selection of the Most Ornamental Flowering, Hardy, Exotic and Indigenous Trees,...

Week 30: Blueberries, Joseph J. White, Inc., Alix Beeston on Ellena Savage

Cover Image. “Vaccinium corymbosum: Stanley.” J. Marion Shull, USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection. Waxing Gibbous Moon; 6 Days to August Cross-Quarter Day. Headnote Rounding out my quartet of...

Week 29: Corn, Haudenosaunee Storytellers, Emily Pauline Johnson

Cover Figure. Nasca artist(s), Corn Stalk-Shaped Vessel (c. 1-600 CE). Waxing Crescent Moon; 13 Days to August Cross-Quarter Headnote In my personal opinion, much resisted by the chatbots I...

Week 28: Redcurrants, Maud Grieve, The Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station

Fig. 1. “Fay’s Prolific,” from Fruit Culture, Volume 2 (Scranton, Pennsylvania: International Textbook Company, 1913), Section 19. Waning Crescent Moon; 21 Days to August Cross-Quarter Day Headnote...

This Week: Curating an Earthly Book of Hours

Taking a week away from the species to make some progress on a side project. I started this Lectio Terra project over the winter, after struggling to finish a short essay around the feelings that “we...

Week 27: Serviceberry, Robin Wall Kimmerer, K.M. Wiegand

Cover Image. “Amelanchier Canadensis,” Plate CXCIV from Charles Sprague Sargent, The Silva of North America, Vol. IV: Rosaceae-Saxifragaceae(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1892), p. 133. Waning Gibbous...

Week 25: Maculae Solares, Galileo Galilei feat. The Roman Inquisition, Simon Barraclough

Cover Image. Richard William Seale, “The Course of the Solar Maculae over the Sun’s Disk” (n.d.). Waxing gibbous moon; summer solstice. Headnote A weather update from outer space: We are more than...

Week 24: Wool Sower Wasp, E.P. Felt, Francesco Redi of Arezzo

Cover Image. “Oak Galls,” from Millett Taylor Thompson, An Illustrated Catalogue of American Insect Galls, ed. E.P. Felt (Nassau, New York: Rensselaer Co., 1915), p. 71.* Waxing Crescent Moon; 3 Days...

Welcome!

Welcome to my corner of the dark forest. I'm Ryan, an independent researcher and writer. Otherwise is my workshop for experimenting with old ideas, practices, and media forms. I'm interested in the...