The seven deadly sins all have their attractions, but I have a particular affinity for gluttony.
Excessive drink? Been there.
Excessive tobacco? Done that.
Excessive intake of sweets? That would be me.
There’s another aspect of gluttony that I am discovering. It has to do with the excessive intake of light and color in nature. Goldenrod, it turns out, is a common trigger for this kind of gluttony.
The connection between goldenrod and gluttony came to me from the writings of Walter I. Anderson, an eccentric and prolific 20th Century artist.
Anderson is known for the nature journals and watercolors that he painted on Horn Island, an abandoned barrier island ten miles off the coast of his home in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
Exposed to the elements and with few supplies, Anderson spent weeks at a time on Horn Island, alone save for the flora and fauna and the wild workings of sand, sea, marsh, wind, and clouds.
Anderson’s entries from November 1959 are full of references to goldenrod.
“The golden rod here is in full bloom–strangely later than the mainland.”
“I did a watercolor of Monarch Butterflies, Goldenrod, blue shadows and pine trees against water–no gnats–no people–no mosquitoes–but no sun. I picked the place the evening before with a halcyon day not a cloud.”
When it came to goldenrod, Anderson was routinely overserved to the point of incapacity:
“I tried a water color of the Geese–but a background of pink grass and Goldenrod dazed me.”
“The Goldenrod was still magnificent and fantastic–a flock of six (?) enormous Geese rose from a little marsh in the dunes–I haven’t digested them yet.”
Anderson called this quality of goldenrod “the burden of the gold”; something so rich and excessive, it can’t be processed.
I’ve been participating in a weekly hawk watch at a prairie preserve on Galveston Bay. My companions are three retired school teachers-turned naturalists.
It’s three hours, in a pickup, with binoculars.
There are northern harriers and eastern meadowlarks by the dozen, and goldenrod blankets the ground in every direction.
The scene has a texture so gold, so vast, and so full of autumn it hurts to take it all in. And like a glutton, I want more.
Three hours is not long enough; the back seat of a pickup is not close enough; the binoculars aren’t large enough.
My nature app, iNaturalist, understands the gluttonous aspect of goldenrod. It lists the plant as “goldenrods.” Plural, as in…bet you can’t have just one.
My husband, Steve, handles his goldenrod just fine. He took this photo at a local park. To use Walter Anderson’s words, it was “A halcyon day…The Golden Rod is magnificent…”
There’s nothing wanting in this photo. Still, I felt a glutton’s compulsion to consume every last bit of the scene. So I painted a couple of sketches in my notebook.
My version doesn’t look much like either the photo or the original. Nor does it look much like a Walter Anderson painting.
But as long as goldenrod serves up light and color this enticing, I think I’ll just help myself to a little morsel.
For more reading and viewing (go ahead…have seconds):
Think you’re allergic to goldenrod? Maybe not. Here’s an article by Audubon “Don’t Blame the Goldenrod”
A deeply entrancing documentary on Walter Anderson: The Extraordinary Art and Life of the Islander, from Mississippi Public TV
Nothing wrong with Canada’s take on goldenrod: “In Praise of Edible, Incredible Goldenrod,” Toronto Star, October 26, 2021.
Braiding Sweetgrass, by 2022 MacArthur Award winner, Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions, 2013.) The entire book is to be savored, but the chapter “Asters and Goldenrod” transformed the way I think about nature, science, and learning.
Sources
The Horn Island Logs of Walter Inglis Anderson, Edited, with an Introduction by Redding S. Sugg., Jr, Memphis State University Press, 1973.
The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea, Jack E. Davis, 2017
Smiling. Smiling. Smiling. Steve's picture was wonderful, as was your drawings. Delightful.
Steve should definitely enter his works into competition.
I hit the no by mistake. Steve should most definitely submit it to the art contest