In the spirit of the season

Branches bare of leaves are top-coated with snow. The woods look full of giant skeletons. An occasional peek of sunshine brightens an otherwise dull day. Fields freshly coated with snow will soon return, for a time, to their autumnal tans, bronze, and brass. Consider last night and today a preview of coming attractions. The dogs don’t remember last winter’s snow so they’re freshly disconcerted by this stuff on the ground under their paws.

pileated woodpecker at suet feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

Conifers have been seasonally highlighted by sparkling flakes. The birds and squirrels have already displaced most of the 3” snow cap on the deck railing. This morning, for the first time, we saw a flicker at the bird bath. Some time during the next few days we’ll put up the suet feeder and see how long until a pileated woodpecker arrives.

There’s been a serendipitous alignment between our season’s first snowfall, watching video’s of our one year old granddaughter exploring her yard in the snow (with parental assistance) and a paragraph in a book I’ve recently begun reading. I may be stretching a little, but not a lot. See what you think:

.... We know that, although our children have come through us, they issue from a source deeper than us. In their face we glimpse something of the Light from which all life has come. In their skin we smell the freshness of life’s origins. It is this deep natural knowing that Celtic wisdom builds on. It is a sacred knowing that becomes the basis of spiritual vision.

The book just quoted is Sacred Earth Sacred Soul, Celtic Wisdom for Reawakening to What Our Souls Know and Healing the World. I picked it up at Scout & Morgan Books on not much more than a whim, while dallying before checking in for my COVID booster shot at the Cub pharmacy down the road. Since the snow doesn’t warrant blowing, and I’m feeling more lethargic than usual, and my left arm is sore, I’m curling up with that interesting book until I return to what laughingly passes for normal around here. Today’s Campbell McGrath poem seems to capture much of what Sacred Earth is about.

The Everglades

Campbell McGrath

Green and blue and white, it is a flag
for Florida stitched by hungry ibises.

It is a paradise of flocks, a cornucopia
of wind and grass and dark, slow waters.

Turtles bask in the last tatters of afternoon,
frogs perfect their symphony at dusk—

in its solitude we remember ourselves,
dimly, as creatures of mud and starlight.

Clouds and savannahs and horizons,
its emptiness is an antidote, its ink

illuminates the manuscript of the heart.
It is not ours though it is ours

to destroy or preserve, this the kingdom
of otter, kingfisher, alligator, heron.

If the sacred is a river within us, let it flow
like this, serene and magnificent, forever.

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