Black racer

I came across a serpent in an Edenic setting last weekend, stretched out in the sun on a pile of brush just over an embankment. It was a black racer, Coluber constrictor, with its large eyes and a white area under the chin, and though they are not uncommon in our region I had not seen one for many years. This is a very fast snake, and it turned tail and vanished as soon as it caught sight of my movement as I was pointing it out to my son, Elias. I do not have the fear of snakes that for many of us seems to be innate, and neither does Elias. I respect them and their personal space, having lived in regions with many more venomous species than our rather docile timber rattlesnake and rarely encountered copperhead. There is still a visceral almost hardwired response when I first sight a snake, one of immediate attentiveness and focus. Coming upon a long, sleek muscular snake certainly concentrates the mind, but that is all.Elias is fascinated by the natural world. He loves animals without sentimentality. Awareness of “Nature, red in tooth and claw” makes him a sharp observer, interested in the half-fledged robin that falls unexpectedly to the lawn from the tree, even if he realizes that it is now far more vulnerable than if it had remained in the nest. He reads the stories in dried bones, the raptor’s plunge and the new life that comes from one seed out of many. He sees patterns in the ebb and flow around him, and I encourage this curiosity.So often we find teaching moments in what nature reveals. If we had gone looking for a black racer, we probably would not have discovered one. We might have come across something else that would engage and amaze us, but mostly it is a matter of being in the moment, of recognizing the opportunities that present themselves. A basking snake, or an owl pellet, or the cries of a hawk on the wind, draw us out of ourselves and into the environment we share with so many other creatures who are far more aware of us than we aer of them.It is too easy to think of our species as somehow apart from the natural world, and indeed modernity has insulated us from the environment in ways our ancestors could hardly have imagined in the days when we drew our subsistence from our surroundings. I have no wish to eke out my existence so near the margin of survival as was once commonplace, but I do need to maintain awareness and connection to land and water and the creatures they sustain. I look forward to new discoveries, perhaps those that Elias brings to my attention, as the season advances. Tim Abbott is program director of Housatonic Valley Association’s Litchfield Hills Greenprint. His blog is at greensleeves.typepad.com.