No! time at the present #phenology

'Tis All Hallows' (All Saints') Day. All Souls' Day is tomorrow (if you care you probably knew that already). Later this month many Minnesotans will give thanks for their blessings, be they many or few. Some of us, or at least one of us, is already counting the Days until Spring: 120 until meteorological Spring begins on March 1, 139 until astronomical Spring starts on the Vernal Equinox on March 20. Those of us who count such things will be grateful that, on Thanksgiving, next Spring will be closer by more than three weeks. One of these days we're going to do more research and see what more we can learn about the Druid yearly cycle. We're intrigued by the similarities between today's poem, and this: "Samhuinn, from October 31st to November 2nd, was a time of no-time."

a time when Summer, the year's light half ends, and winter, the dark half, begins

Photo by J. Harrington

Clearly today, if we're already focused on next Spring, we aren't doing very well with the Zen concept of "being in the moment." (Time to restudy Yoda's Life Teachings?) Frequently, when the present moment occurs amid cloudy, dreary, damp days, with mixes of rain and snow added in, we feel as though we may as well be in exile in the swamps of Dagobah. We remember, perhaps because of their rarity, Minnesota Winter days as cold and crisp, with blue skies overhead, sometimes full of light, fluffy snow flakes. Global warming may have brought shorter Winters to Minnesota but, it seems, it's also brought considerably more cloud cover, freezing rain and rain-snow mix. Climate change has affected our Winter more than our Summer. Warmer air holds more moisture (which seems inconsistent with our seasonal distribution of cloudy versus sunny days distribution) so, in theory, our already cloudy Winter days could be getting cloudier? SAD, SAD, SAD!

(On a happy note, a thank you goes to Paul Douglas' weather blog for pointing us toward today's poem.)

No!

Thomas Hood

        No sun—no moon!
        No morn—no noon—
No dawn—
        No sky—no earthly view—
        No distance looking blue—
No road—no street—no “t’other side the way”—
        No end to any Row—
        No indications where the Crescents go—
        No top to any steeple—
No recognitions of familiar people—
        No courtesies for showing ‘em—
        No knowing ‘em!
No traveling at all—no locomotion,
No inkling of the way—no notion—
        “No go”—by land or ocean—
        No mail—no post—
        No news from any foreign coast—
No park—no ring—no afternoon gentility—
        No company—no nobility—
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
   No comfortable feel in any member—
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
        November!

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