Spring is sprung, what's next?

Yes, thank you, I have almost recovered from the Spring cold I started coming down with last weekend. Also, once again, the snow cover has finally melted. Locally, things are looking up, but the skies are too often clouded. That hasn't kept the waterfowl from returning. The Sunrise River pools have lots of open water occupied by swans, Canada geese and diving ducks. I also saw the unusual sight of a handful of crows walking along the ice at the edge of open water. Surrounding marshes may contain red-winged blackbirds, but our observations weren't close enough to confirm identification.

returning Canada geese and ducks on Sunrise River in Carlos Avery WMA

Photo by J. Harrington

While suffering the sneezing, coughing, snuffling, nose-blowing, no energy miseries this past week, I had the pleasure of reading most of Rebecca Solnit's The Beginning Comes After the End. So far it's got me, Mr. Gloom and Doom, feeling more optimistic than I have in quite a while. I've lived through and been generally aware of almost all the changes she writes about, but hadn't put them together quite the way she does. Meanwhile, I'm still adjusting to the idea that the future isn't something out there that we adapt to but something all of us are creating by our actions (or inactions) every day.

I'm looking forward to bud burst, leaf out and green up, along with days growing warmer and maybe even occasional sunshine. However, I've lived in the North Country long enough to know better than to prematurely pack away our gear for snow and/or cold weather. Maybe the last few patches of icy snow on the shaded south side of the drive will actually finish melting one of these days and we can look forward to seeing ducklings, goslings and sandhill crane colts as the seasons go round and round.

Of Course It Hurts

by Karin Boye

Of course it hurts when buds burst.
Otherwise why would spring hesitate?
Why would all our fervent longing
be bound in the frozen bitter haze?
The bud was the casing all winter.
What is this new thing, which consumes and bursts?
Of course it hurts when buds burst,
pain for that which grows
and for that which envelops.

Of course it is hard when drops fall.
Trembling with fear they hang heavy,
clammer on the branch, swell and slide -
the weight pulls them down, how they cling.
Hard to be uncertain, afraid and divided,
hard to feel the deep pulling and calling,
yet sit there and just quiver -
hard to want to stay
                      and to want to fall.

Then, at the point of agony and when all is beyond help,
the tree’s buds burst as if in jubilation,
then, when fear no longer exists,
the branch’s drops tumble in a shimmer,
forgetting that they were afraid of the new,
forgetting that they were fearful of the journey –
feeling for a second their greatest security,
resting in the trust
                         that creates the world.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Winter's last grasp?

Today is the Ides of March. Tuesday will be St. Patrick's Day. Friday is the Vernal Equinox, at 9:46 am locally. As I'm writing this, we have about half a foot of fresh snow on the ground and several more hours of continuing snowfall ahead of us. Will this storm reach the depth of the March 22, 2024 "Spring blizzard?" We'll see. Often, what's left of Winter grasps us by the proverbial short hairs. I consider "Winter's last gasp" a misnomer, in part because, here in the North Country, it's been known to snow every month except July. But after 9:46 am Friday, until Summer Solstice, precipitation will officially be known as "Spring showers."

almost 9 inches, March 22, 2024

Photo by J. Harrington

According to the ORDER OF BARDS, OVATES & DRUIDS:

"Winter sometimes seems so long, that we could be forgiven for wondering whether Spring will ever return. But the Goddess of Spring is merely sleeping through the darkness of Winter, and while she stirs at Imbolc, she is truly awake by the time of the Spring Equinox.

"The forces of light are equally balanced with the forces of darkness at this time, but light is on the increase – and will reach its apogee at the Summer Solstice three months later.

"The symbolic plant of the Equinox in Druidry is the trefoil or shamrock, which is also customarily worn on St. Patrick’s Day, 17th March – almost at the time of the Spring Equinox. The usual explanation for the use of the shamrock is that St Patrick once used its three-leaved shape to illustrate the doctrine of the Trinity, but in fact shamrock is probably the national emblem of Ireland because of its earlier Druidic associations, and it is seen by some authorities as a survival of the trignetra, a Christianised wheel or sun symbol."

Wouldn't it be wonderful if, once again, the forces of light truly became dominant in and for US and the rest of the world, starting with this week? Our world is not a monoculture. Our moon is closer to that, and closer to being lifeless. The more we learn about Earth, the more she appears comprised of interdependent relationships rather than a collection of objects. Truth, much like beauty, is often found in the eye of the beholder. Don't just take my word for that, ask a quantum physicist.

Meanwhile, we'll keep our fingers crossed that waterfowl, sandhill cranes, and other migrators that arrived last week can hang in there through a couple of cold days after this storm so that they don't give up on the North Country as a good place for nesting and raising families. Now, it's time to assess how we're going to make the driveway drivable and walkable. C'mon Spring!!!

 Instructions on Not Giving Up

Ada Limón

1976 –

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.