Megaloceros and Magic

By June Daniel-William Dickson

Megaloceros and Magic is a series of short stories describing this Earth. Our planet is a vast and complicated place--not simply just from a human perspective, but a natural one as well. Evolutionary biology, astrophysics, mineralogy, ecology, tectonics: these are sciences that explain what we see in the world around us. Each study illustrates the world in a holistic (albeit strictly pragmatic) way. Megaloceros and Magic takes these studies and connects them directly to humans, philosophically describing processes in nature which may, for all intents and purposes, be counted as magical--such phenomena as bioluminescence, the emergence of life itself, color, black holes, and the heat death of the universe. But beyond science and humanity, Megaloceros and Magic also describes a story of pride and coming-of-age.

Each life is filled with scores of moments and interactions which, in recollection, can be recognized as pivotal in the development of the person who we became. A partly autobiographical work, Megaloceros and Magic candidly examines several such moments in the life of the author, June Dickson, linking them to the natural world to demonstrate the connections that humans have with nature, one another, and their own self. In the discussion of his own life, Dickson chronicles everything from summer camp as a kid, his overcoming of self-harm and depression, nighttime walks on the beach, expressions of love, and coming out. Through these cross examinations, Megaloceros and Magic remarks on that in the world which may be categorized as magical.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665575645

Book preview

2022 June Daniel-William Dickson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  12/07/2022

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7565-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7566-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7564-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022920979

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Megaloceros and Magic

The Red Tide

On the Perfect Nature of Crystal Lattices

The Forces Greater than Black Holes

mustard is a plant that exists

Running Affirms my Species

Lessons from the Abalone

HOMESWITCHER (The Shape Of Heimat)

What for Stands the Ginkgo Tree (What’s Left of the Flag)

Light Through a Gemstone

Six-Seventeen

The Log Down in the Valley

About the author

To anyone who has ever felt alone.

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T he creature stood before us like a skeletal monster: its antlers wider than I stood tall, its legs a bold ten feet. The soft incandescent lights lent it a golden, almost angelic, aura--reduced by the jagged and angular construction of its bones. The marble podium upon which the display had been mounted exaggerated the sheer size of the beast, the skull of which had been positioned to stoically look down upon the museum’s visitors. Bret and I, both having knowledge of paleontology, gazed at the fossil with some prior understanding of what it was, so we didn’t linger long. We spent the day browsing through the LA Museum of Natural History, visiting exhibits on every subject from biogenesis to mineralogy to cosmology.

The display of that creature, however, sticks with me. That fossil deer, the Irish elk, is a standing contradiction: both alien and familiar, primal yet modern, giant yet gentle, powerful yet extinct. For across the ancient glacial landscape of Eurasia and the European continent, there once stood a boreal forest; a dramatic realm of pines, spruce, and seasons. Cool and temperate summers followed cold, prolonged winters, creating habitats for a great number of organisms from lynxes and owls to the cloudberry and dryas plants. It is in this time there lived a number of massive creatures, called the Pleistocene megafauna--such monsters as the mammoths and mastodons, antique bison and horses, and several species of giant ground sloths. Though the megafauna themselves were not limited to Europe (instead having a global distribution), the continent was home to that most breathtaking deer to have ever existed--the Irish elk, Megaloceros giganteus.

A combination of predation by our ancestors and global deglaciation drove the Irish elk to extinction, but scientific reconstructions of the elk continue to give us an increasingly clear image of their lives and ultimate demise. Radiometric dating has given us a timeframe for their emergence and extinction, all occurring within the recent geologic past. The genus Megaloceros emerged about 1.2 million years ago, and finally went extinct about 8,000 years ago. Petroglyphs, the paintings left behind by ancient humans, give us clues about their coloration--we can gather that M. giganteus had tan fur, punctuated by a dark spot around its shoulders and a black stripe down its spine. Scientists understand that M. giganteus had a vast range spanning between Ireland and central Asia, based on the distribution of these petroglyphs. The skeletal remains of adults are nearly 7 feet tall at the shoulder, while their head and neck span another 3 feet atop that. Their most striking feature was their antlers; they spanned horizontally up to 12 feet wide, and reached skyward another 5.

One can only imagine what the humans who once gazed up at one thought; standing on a hillside opposite an Irish elk, the full moon rising between his two branching antlers. There the beast is a silhouette, cloaked with an ethereal aura of dull silvery light and bristling fur, like a ghost in the night--a splendid contrast to the display of the fossil which he would become. Such grace and power had he, suited perfectly for the ecology he roamed; the sheer and absolute beauty of nature, yet unspoiled by even the earliest of human society--humans have always been drivers of extinction.

Before we filled our biosphere with microplastics, before biocides, nuclear weaponry, metallurgy, or even the invention of agriculture, we invaded ecosystems worldwide and altered them to suit only the human good. Too often, we find ourselves irreverent of the self-perpetuating, ever-progressing, infinitely-inspirational ecosystems that envelop our entire planet like a warm blanket. A blanket wholly unique to our Earth.

In the Irish elk, I see the quintessentially perfect process of evolutionary trial-and-error that led to its emergence. Postured like a marionette in the LA Museum