Natural History Week 2023

By Pam McDonald

The contrast of the seascape of white-gray granite rock and deep-blue water and sky with the dark paneled conference room is stark. The air in here is musty—the space recently opened after being closed and dark through the long, empty winter. Conflicted, I want to hear the lecture—and I want to soak up every minute I can outside exploring the island. My first time here for the Natural History Week conference on Star Island, I decide the outdoors must wait—I am here to learn—and take a seat near the front of the room. Dr. Mike Sigler, a researcher and professor at the Isle of Shoals Marine Lab across the harbor will lecture about the North Atlantic Biome and the impact of climate change. The findings he shares are chilling: “The Gulf of Maine is the fastest warming body of water in the world.” 

Life is in flux here in a dramatic way.

On his laptop he mirrors a short graphic onto the projector screen. Every creatures in this biome interacts with another, he says. This is the web of life here: and across the screen a chaotic looking branching of squiggly lines charts across the graphic. Copepods, herring, butterfish, lobsters, seals, gulls, terns, guillemots, cod, haddock, sharks and whales all held in the web. Dr. Mike holds me here, too.

That graphic will stay with me all week and into my life back home. I am held in this web with all life. It is humbling. And I feel its truth. I can have impact. Can I feel myself being held? Yes, I can—more and more all the time. 

At the end of the week, I was asked to share about my experience at the conference during our peer-led evening chapel service. I spent the afternoon walking the island and this poem came through me. By candlelight that evening I shared the following with my new-found community. 

The Weaving of Life

by Pam McDonald

It’s a food chain, Dr. Mike said

And then the next graphic

unfurled the complex

patterning of the web of life

that is

Here

in our North Atlantic biome.

This is what I remember:

My heart opening—

My mind integrating—

A scientifically-informed graphic 

visually representing

the connection and interdependence 

of all living things in the Gulf of Maine

I felt that connection deep in my bones.

From the outset of this Star journey

Grief has traveled here with me, too.

I found a labyrinth next to the sea when I first arrived

and walked it with intention 

Searching for clarity and creativity

My mind-busy

wrapped up in the threatening repetition of:

“The world is on fire!”

As I spiraled through the labyrinth 

Clarity was not ready for me, 

yet,

a bright yellow warbler

popped out from the beach rose

cocking its head at me

and intimated: Hope.

Grief was here and I could not

push her away.

Fortunately,

I know a secret about grief—

She is bound to Love.

So, I sat with my tears

and the Love came with her

Witnessed in so much kindness

from so many people who 

started the week as strangers

and became friends

on this star of an island.

My week moved 

like the currents of the sea surrounding me

A swell of grief 

and the space to feel it

Then joy—whale sitings!

Guillemots nesting! Greater black-backed Gulls!

Grey and Harbor Seals looking back at us!

And the most inspiring scientists and researchers 

sharing their passionate work to save this ecosystem

This pattern spiraling through my days

taking me deeper into myself—integrating my past, my present

and wondering into my future…

Sometimes transcendence is painful—

I witnessed the beauty and the peril

of all life on these islands and in her waters

And asked the hard question: Where am I in all of this?

Time on Star Island

Stilled my mind

Cracked me open

underneath my grief is my truth—

An outpouring of Love: All of this matters!

Searching for an ending that 

will tie this experience up 

in a neat bow—

I find none.

Like the jagged lines of that 

graphic of the food web of 

all the organisms in our 

North Atlantic Biome

Some connections are fraught with

uncertainty

Some are stressed to the point of brokenness

Some have disappeared completely.

And, still my heart beats;

the sun rises, the sun sets.

The tern parents will dive for fish

hoping for herring, not butterfish 

to feed their young on White Island.

Hope, said the yellow warbler.

Keep fishing, said the tern.

Stay curious, said the seal.

At the end of my week

I returned to the labyrinth

and walked it again

My intention—deep listening

My mind quiet

These words came through me: 

“You are a translator”

And, I allowed this poem to flow.