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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Please be kind to each other while you can.

Settling down for a long winter’s ....?

Wildflower seeds are scattered on the back yard slope’s bare patches, thanks to the Better Half. Many of the recently fallen leaves have been mulched and/or bagged and dumped onto a compost pile [my jobs]. Snow is in the forecast for this afternoon and evening. It’ll be interesting to see how much we get and how long it lasts. George Winston, the musician, has a recording titled Winter into Spring and others titled Autumn, Summer, and December, but no Autumn into Winter. I can readily imagine the tinkle of melting snow and ice growing into musical flows as the seasons warm. I’m not sure what the susurration of falling leaves and snowflakes would grow into except howling winds which I don’t find terribly musical, but then, neither am I a musician.

There seem to be more leaves this year than in years past, although we suspect it seems that way because we had a warmer autumn that lasted longer than usual and then most of the leaves came down all at once, except for the ones still hanging onto the trees. Our push mower does a fair job of bagging leaves, but the bag fills terribly quickly and requires frequent emptying. Maybe if we had goats they could feed on buckthorn in summer and leaves in winter? That has to be too easy a solution or everyone would be doing it.

Harry the beagle adjusting to his new home

Photo by J. Harrington

Making the adjustments, mental, emotional and physical, to work with natural processes instead of dominating a landscape with turf grass is a challenge, but a rewarding and engaging one. Steering the tractor helped loosen the tight muscles in my arm left over from yesterday’s COVID booster. Harry the beagle is prompting us to clean up a long unused dog run. (He’s not comfortable taking care of some business while on a lead, but gleefully makes his deposit after scampering about the run for a minute or two.) We’ll probably have to revert to blowing a path through the snow to the run’s gate until the snow depth gets to be too deep for Harry’s short legs. Or, Harry learns to adapt to the lead and goes for walks along the plowed edge of the road? As things now stand, we have lots to look forward to all winter and into next spring.

First Snow

By Arthur Sze

A rabbit has stopped on the gravel driveway:

           imbibing the silence,

           you stare at spruce needles:

                                          there's no sound of a leaf blower, 

                                          no sign of a black bear;

a few weeks ago, a buck scraped his rack

           against an aspen trunk;

           a carpenter scribed a plank along a curved stone wall.

                        You only spot the rabbit's ears and tail:

when it moves, you locate it against speckled gravel,

but when it stops, it blends in again;

           the world of being is like this gravel:

                        you think you own a car, a house,

                        this blue-zigzagged shirt, but you just borrow these things. 

Yesterday, you constructed an aqueduct of dreams

                        and stood at Gibraltar,

                                                but you possess nothing.

Snow melts into a pool of clear water;

     and, in this stillness,

                        starlight behind daylight wherever you gaze. 

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