In the Fragrant Pink

It should be noted, for the sake of integrity, that everything here which is in bloom is in a pot - there will be no blossoming in the garden behind the little blue house in the village for several weeks - indeed there is still snow in our garden.

Indoor floral offerings in pots include tulips, hyacinths and calla lilies, and from the almost profligate enthusiasm with which they adorn the house with their colour and fragrance, one would think that the world beyond the open casements is in bloom too. Not yet...

Rainy

Windblest Lambs

Windblest Farm is owned and operated by our acquaintances, Bryan and Janice Lever near Ferguson Falls in Lanark County. The farm is on a long hill looking down toward the river and its sloping fields are caressed by the wind all year long, hence the name.

The farm is home to Border Leicester (first photo) and Oxford sheep, and the newest residents are the Bluefaced Leicester sheep aquired last year from Beechtree Farm in Michigan. Both the ewes and this year's new lambs are gorgeous.

The fleece of the Bluefaced Leicester is soft as silk and apparently closer to cashmere than any other wool. Having seen and touched both the sweet lambs and their fleece this weekend, I am giving some thought to returning to the fold myself - getting back to the carding, spinning and weaving I enjoyed so much years ago. The question is, where would I put a good sized loom in this wee house?

From the Window

Thursday Poem - Happiness

There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

Jane Kenyon
(from The Breath of Parted Lips: Voices
From the Robert Frost Place)

Wordless Wednesday - Blue River

Benediction

Once in a while, one has a sunrise like this one, the mother-of-pearl sky striated like a clam shell in shades of rose and gold and lavender. The waning moon is just rising - she dances alone and dreams of waxing once more, of springtime and greening and fullness and warmth.

A few minutes later, and the show is over, the moon no longer visible against the intense blue bowl of early morning and the vivid sunlight pouring itself out across everything below. Call it a benediction...

Tattered

Sentinel

Happy Ostara (or Vernal Equinox)

Today, old Helios enters the sign of Aries and appears to cross the celestial equator on his way north, although we are the ones in motion, and not the Sun. Day and night are equal in length, and the power of the Sun is growing stronger. Believe it or not, we are already midway between Imbolc in the first days of February and Beltane on May 1. Hallelujah..... Pour the wine, summon the band, get out our dancing shoes - springtime has arrived.

The word Ostara has its origins in the the name of an ancient Germanic goddess of fertility and Springtime. Her name is Eostre, and she is also a lunar goddess. Her symbols include hares, rabbits, eggs, young birds, birds' nests, the New Moon, butterflies and cocoons. Her colors are all pastels; pale yellow, green and blue, as well as the stronger colors of the greening season - grass green, robin's egg blue, violet, and creamy white, and her stones are also pale; aquamarine, rose quartz, and moonstone. Mythical beasts include unicorns, mermaids and mermen, winged horses and centaurs. The plants associated with this festival are the delicate flowers of Spring, crocuses, snowdrops, daffodils, and narcissus, as well as jasmine, Irish moss and ginger. Ostara (or the Vernal Equinox) celebrates the warming and healing powers of the Sun, the greening of the earth, and the emergence of new life in Spring.

A marvelous thing is this great cosmic round in which we live - the seasons go round and round like a satin Möbius ribbon, and we dance out our days in a glorious magical living spiral.

If one lives in the north as I do, there will be no wildflowers for quite a while, but the first spring lambs are being born now, and it will not be long until spring fawns and little red foxes appear in the countryside. The maple syrup season or "sugaring off" time is in full swing, and the sounds of of the sawhet owl can be heard now and then in the woods. This beautiful little owl is a fierce predator, and it is known locally as the sugar bird for its melodious hooting during the maple syrup season. Green things are already stirring deep within the earth, and if one listens carefully, one can hear the sound of woodland streams flowing beneath the snow.

On my Ostara rambles, I think of the bloodroot, crocus and trout lilies which will adorn the hillsides in Lanark County in several weeks, and of the wild orchids and columbines which will follow them a short time later. When I return home after my rambles, I plant the first herbs of the season with a small blessing for each, and place a little clay pot in every window in the house. My cilantro, parsley, thyme and lavender seeds are already sleeping in their pots and preparing to burst into shaggy magnificence - they will grace our sanctuary with fragrance and good taste for many months to come.

Happy Ostara (and Vernal Equinox) to all of you!

Thursday Poem - Beannacht ("Blessing")

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

The late John O'Donohoe's Beannacht ("Blessing") is the best of all poems for this week of St. Patrick's Day. John once wrote that he "would like to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding". That strikes me as a fine credo for living a full and mindful life, and his essay called "The Question Holds the Lantern" is wise stuff indeed.

Wordless Wednesday - Gentle Blooming

Green, Green...

Turning Toward Springtime

White-breasted Nuthatch
(Sitta carolinensis)

Winter remains for the most part, but here and there are stones and patches of desiccated grass revealed by the snow drifts as they recede in the stronger sunlight.

For all the remaining grimy detritus of winter, there is definitely springtime in the air here. The stubbly corn fields are filled with grazing geese newly returned to the fold. Chickadees, nuthatches, redpolls and cardinals have already paired up for the nesting season, and the ravens are cavorting overhead and singing ribald ditties to each other and anyone below.

Today, I was up well before sunrise and went out to the veranda with my mug of Darjeeling to greet the moon as she rose behind the bare ash trees in the garden. That too is a sign of spring.

They're Back!

Is there anything on the planet to compare with the elation which comes bubbling up when one hears the call of returning geese? Whatever else I am engaged in on this sunny day, my ears are tuned to the skies and flights of Canadas passing overhead in vast singing waves.

I shall have to wait several weeks for returning herons and loons, of course, but now that the geese are coming home, I think I can do it.

There are millions of Canada here in season, and they are regarded in some quarters as pests, but to me they are magnificent and they will never be pests.

Chiaroscuro

Friday Ramble - Clear

Clear is a thirteenth century word coming to us via the Old French cler and the Latin clarus both meaning "bright, transparent or can be seen through". The word shares its origins with chiaroscuro (light and shadow) claret (wine), clarify (to make clear or explain), clarion (a medieval trumpet with a ringing bell-like tone) and declare (to make something known in a direct understandable way).

When something is clear, we can see through it, and it (whatever it is) seems to shine and have lustre, free from obscurity and from that which darkens or conceals. It is transparent, pure, perfect and unblemished, readily understood. Clear brings to mind the rising sun anointing my beaver pond in springtime, perfect moonlit rural nights when the sky is free of cloud, and the moon and stars seem to be dancing together up there in the darkness.

On a more mundane (and less celestial or cosmic) level these days, it is seeing my reflection in a shop window, a limpid ice rimed pond, my impetuous little river in Lanark or a melt pool in the park and not turning away from that gnarly old creature in dismay, but embracing her and welcoming her home with open arms. It is being truly present in this place and time in which I find myself - counting my breaths and simply letting go of the rattle and hum.

Clear is a simple and balanced state - it is what remains when one pares away the dross of mundane life and the detritus of empire and subscribes instead to "enoughness", to that which is lean and supple and spare. It means traveling lightly into the uncharted territories ahead, going on unencumbered and carrying only the bare essentials for the journey, but trusting that they will always be enough, that there will be bridges for crossing, trees for shade, water to ease one's thirst and stars overhead to light the way. Clear is walking the path with a tranquil expression, an easy stride (or a lurch or a hobble) and a light heart, and it is the commonwealth I am journeying toward, sometimes on foot and sometimes paddling.

Sometimes, just sometimes, when I am standing on the edge of my beaver pond at sunrise, there is a moment of kensho, a fleeting incandescent interval when everything is lucid, resonant and as perfectly pitched as a monastery bell. It's all about light...

Wordless Wednesday - Transformation

Seven Lovely (and Very Creative) Things

Gera Scott Chandler of aMused artisan honored me with a Creative Blogger Award a while ago, and it truly made my day, but of course, I had to think about it for some time before posting anything here. Listing just seven much loved things is a difficult thing to do when the great wide world is chock full of signs and wonders and dreams and old seas and fine star spangled nights. I love, to name just a few things...

1. A single large mug of Indian tea (preferably Darjeeling) in the morning and a few quiet minutes in which to watch the sun rise through the kitchen window.

2. Perfect springtime sunsets when the sky is painted in shades from palest gold, rose and mauve to deepest indigo and the timber wolves are singing just over the hill.

3. Full moons and starry starry nights at any time of year - the wonder and magnificence of those nights never fail to amaze and astonish me.

4. The calling of great flights of returning Canada geese as they pass over the little blue house in the village in springtime. The first flight came home yesterday, and it made me feel like dancing, even though my cavorting would have been in deep snow. Then there are the stately great herons and tuxedo-clad loons of my beloved Lanark Highlands - they fill me with wonder and pleasure every single time.

5. The music the river makes as it tumbles headlong from the heights and roars happily down toward the beaver pond.

6. The sound of the wind in the spruce trees on the eastern hill at the Two Hundred Acre Wood.

7. My beautiful sweet Spencer curled up on the sofa and breathing softly as he dreams of chasing rabbits. Ears, nose and feet are in constant motion, and he croons a contented song as he floats along through the woods with a happy grin.

By the River

Nuthatch

Red-breasted Nuthatch
(Sitta canadensis)

Snow and Rocks Emerging

Here and there on the steep hillside above the beaver pond and its impetuous inflowing river, rocks and withered grasses are starting to appear again, revealed by the lengthening days and the warmth of old Helios as he gathers his strength.

There are chunks of granite as large as small residences, artfully weathered boulders and glacial drop stones everywhere, many looking as though they had been carefully shaped by ancient stone masons for some obscure building project and then abandoned.

I wander among the boulders and exercise caution - there are deep fissures here and there, caves and hobbit holes and shafts that go halfway to China. Whatever else I may forget, I somehow always manage to remember where all the fractures are, and I am never happier than when wandering here on a fine day in March's middling pages.

The sound of the wind in the bare trees, the ravens calling overhead, the song the river sings as it tumbles down to the beaver pond - a fine wild music, all of it...

Thursday Poem - Return

Through the weeks of deep snow
we walked above the ground
on fallen sky, as though we did
not come of root and leaf, as though
we had only air and weather
for our difficult home
But now
as March warms, and the rivulets
run like birdsong on the slopes,
and the branches of light sing in the hills,
slowly we return to earth.

Wendell Berry

Wordless Wednesday - Waiting

Old Butternut in Bud

Edges of March

Bitterly cold yesterday, but the sky was a blue as clear and sharply faceted as a sapphire, and after the cold nights, the deep snow was as hard as old stone and easy to walk on without sinking in.

Water was running freely in the creek below the eastern hill and singing as it tumbled down the gorge toward the still frozen beaver pond on the far side of the Two Hundred Acre Wood.

One's passionately clicking fingers freeze swiftly on such a cold day, but the crystalline ice shapes on the verges of the creek were crying out to be captured for posterity (or more likely just for the doddering photographer), and captured they were - frozen fingers and painful lungs or no.

Returning home, I briefly pondered tinkering with contrast, color balance, resolution and sharpness and decided not to do it - this is what an early March day is like, and it would be an insult to the Old Wild Mother to tart up her creations.

Amaryllis Unfolding