NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — I grew up in St. Helena walking deer paths that threaded from backyards into oaks and manzanita. The creek near our home ran clear enough to show brick-red crayfish and the crevices where steelhead juveniles paused before heading to the sea. If I lifted the right log after a rain, a worm-sized California slender salamander might ease into view — its ebony body still, its dark eyes more curious than afraid. Those moments felt like secrets the land shared on its own timetable. I used to wish I could ask the original inhabitants of this land what they knew — those who walked this valley for at least 10,000 years — how they read the hills and water, what names they used for every plant, animal, rock and for the changing light.
Later I studied biology, then explored the molecular underpinnings of life, but the apprenticeship started there. A hand under a damp log. Breath held. A living thing in your palm that smelled of damp oak leaves, moss and time.
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At night I looked to the sky with my camera and learned to keep still. Long exposures teach patience. Stars turn to arcs. The sensor records what the eye can’t, and it becomes obvious that the clock by which we live is only a small one nested inside larger clocks…