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.

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

Perfecting Hope

Yesterday Saturday's snow melted back to bare ground. Several inches more is currently in the forecast for next weekend. Maybe the forecast will improve by midweek. Non-freezing rain is preferable to snow. On the brighter side, red osier dogwood stems are bright red and willow branches have turned golden. Spring is waiting in the wings.

a bouquet of red osier dogwood stems

Photo by J. Harrington

Several pairs of swans are hanging around on the graying ice of Pool 1 in Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area and we spotted flocks of waterfowl loafing in an oversized farm-field puddle south of Forest Lake. Slowly we expect frozen to thaw, migrants to return or pass through, and more wildlife and avian mating to get underway. Writing this blog posting yesterday was interrupted by one of the most spectacular sunsets I can recall seeing. This morning I saw and heard a "V" of northbound Canada geese. There may yet be hope for an end to winter.

I'm looking forward to seeing if the serviceberry bushes I (re)planted last summer made it through the winter. (The first bushes died withing several weeks. The current ones made it through several months of Summer and Autumn.) Although tempted to write "I hope they made it," my current rereading of Rebecca Solnit's Hope in the Dark has put a twist in my understanding of "hope." She writes:

“I believe in hope as an act of defiance, or rather as the foundation for an ongoing series of acts of defiance, those acts necessary to bring about some of what we hope for while we live by principle in the meantime. There is no alternative, except surrender. And surrender not only abandons the future, it abandons the soul.”

I really like that belief although I've never thought of hope that way. Perhaps I'm not too old to augment or modify my beliefs. Anyhow my rereading is to help maintain some semblance of sanity in today's world and to prepare for reading Solnit's latest, The Beginning Comes After the End, which was published last week. I expect to get a copy within a fortnight.

There is much happening, or not happening, in the world about which I can do little by myself. Several of the conservation organizations to which I belong are not as assertive as I would like about the issues I find important. One thing I can control, on a good day, is my reaction to the world and my behavior. (Who else do you know that keeps a small poster that says "You know it was a good day if you didn't hit or bite anyone.") (Re)reading Solnit (and Donella Meadows Dancing with Systems) is a big factor helping me to put a few good days together.

Once The World Was Perfect

by Joy Harjo

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.

Then we took it for granted.

Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.

Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.

And once Doubt ruptured the web,

All manner of demon thoughts

Jumped through—

We destroyed the world we had been given

For inspiration, for life—

Each stone of jealousy, each stone

Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.

No one was without a stone in his or her hand.

There we were,

Right back where we had started.

We were bumping into each other

In the dark.

And now we had no place to live, since we didn’t know

How to live with each other.

Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another

And shared a blanket.

A spark of kindness made a light.

The light made an opening in the darkness.

Everyone worked together to make a ladder.

A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,

And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,

And their children, all the way through time—

To now, into this morning light to you.

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