Small Wonders in the Woods

 Hepatica (Hepatica nobilis)

Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica)

We are somewhat behind this year when it comes to wildflowers blooming and new leaves popping out, and there is no sign yet of my favorite early bloomer, Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) with its snowy petals, golden heart and artfully scalloped enfolding leaves. 

There are (however) delightfully mottled Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) specimens showing up here and there, and yesterday morning I found tiny clumps of Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica) blooming, also the first feathered blue-green leaves of Dutchman's Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria). I had my field notebook with me and marked each specimen carefully on a grid of the Two Hundred Acre Wood - these are the first entries in 2013's botanical study of  native plants.  Every year another study,  and always something new and wonderful to discover...

This morning's photo offerings are among the first wildflowers to come out in the northern woodland. There is only one way to capture their delicate perfection, and that is to lie full length in the fragrant sun warmed leaf matter with camera in hand, eyelash to eyelash and nose to nose with the tiny plants. It is only at such close quarters that one can take in the colors, count the petals and decide what she is actually looking at. There is something to be said for looking at life and wild places from a slightly different angle once in a while. When I rolled over and looked up at the sky through the budding maple trees yesterday, the prospect was absolutely dazzling, and I felt like an otter cavorting in the sunlight.

For all the somewhat cooler temperatures and wind, there were woodpeckers, brown creepers and amorous chickadees cavorting in the trees, exuberantly drumming grouse on hollow logs in the woods, vultures soaring in high lazy circles over our heads. A few days ago, I chased the first Mourning Cloak butterfly of the season a long way into the woods, stopping only when it alighted forty feet up in a poplar and stayed there.  Surely, we need only be patient for a little longer, and springtime will arrive fully, strewing warmth, sunlight and green leaves everywhere.

In the northern hemisphere, this is the eve of Beltane or May Day.  A joyous observance to you and your clan - may there be both sunlight and wild greening in your part of the great wide world.

Finding Gold in the Woods

 

Trout Lily, also called Fawn Lily or Dogtooth Violet

(Erythronium americanum)

Budding Out and Loving It

Month after month, one plumbs the wisdom of snow and tries to capture its essence with her camera, always looking for the beating heart of the long white season but not encountering it for the most part and feeling a little lost and forlorn. Oh, there are moments when the winds falls to a whisper and one can actually hear snow falling among the old trees, but those moments are few, and they are eclipsed by the bitter cold.

Then along comes springtime, a morning when shadows seem not as sharp across one's path into the woods, the morning sunlight softer, weathered rocks in the highlands warmer.  Up through sun heated stone, a tiny green shoot emerges from last autumn's heaped leaves, and it bears a fragile white bud - the whole plant is no larger than the nail on my little finger.  Behold the first trillium of the season, its delicately veined leaves enfolding a flower to open in only a few days.

Could life be more perfect than it seems in springtime? Reclining on the good dark earth a few days ago, nose to happy nose with the first trillium bud in its mothering granite, I was refreshed and renewed and simply could not have been happier.

Perhaps I too am in bud and about to bloom.

Coming Into the Light

Greater White Trillium

(Trillium grandiflorum) 

April's Full Seed Moon

When April's full moon comes calling and lighting up the night, there's the tang of fresh earth underfoot and greenly astringent sap flowing through every twig and branch, but the landscape hasn't begun its reckless prodigal flaring into color and fragrance and song. This part of the world awakens slowly, and in April we cavort like perfect fools on the cusp between winter and spring as we are waiting for the weather to warm up and the landscape to come to life.  In her resemblance to a great cosmic egg or seed, this month's full moon expresses the riotous greening to come and new life quickening in the earth far below her.

A puckish and unpredictable thing is life in the great round and what I like to call "the matter of moons". One goes out faithfully with tripod and camera month after month, and she is always hoping to witness to the moon on her special night, but can never really be sure of seeing her - especially in springtime when the lady is concealed by rain clouds for days at a time.  Last night, Spencer and I were fortunate, and although there was rain in our cards, the skies were clear for a brief interval.  Just past nine, Luna rose over the hills like a pearl, and we were both there to bear witness to her ascent. 

Around this time every year, I seem to find myself all wrapped up in vague longings that evade description, wandering for hours in the woods and along local waterways and reaching for something that can't be articulated in words or captured on a memory card. Some of my restlessness can be attributed to the fact that I have been here all winter while various family members and friends traveled to warmer climes, but the truth is that I too am longing to sprout leaves and burst into bloom. The moon in her radiant fullness quiets my nebulous springtime longings.  Sometimes old stones lull them too, as do little garden jungles of rainy leaves and flocks of Canada geese passing overhead on their way to the river. There's a gentle melancholy in such yearnings, and they become stronger and more compelling with every passing year.

We also know this restless yearning moon as the: Ashes Moon, Big Spring Moon, Broken Snowshoe Moon, Budding Trees Moon, Bullhead Moon, Cherry Blossom Moon, Daisy Moon, Moon, Egg Moon, Fish Moon, Flower Moon, Fourth Moon, Frog Moon, Glittering Snow on Lake Moon, Grass Moon, Gray Goose Moon, Great Sand Storm Moon, Green Grass Moon, Growing Moon, Half Spring Moon, Hare Moon, Ice Breaking in the River Moon, Leaf Split Moon, Loon Moon, Maple Sap Boiling Moon, Moon of Greening Grass, Moon of Red Grass Appearing, Moon of the Big Leaves, Moon of the Red Grass Appearing, Moon of Windbreak, Moon When Geese Return in Scattered Formation, Moon When Nothing Happens, Moon When the Geese Lay Eggs, Moon When They Set Indian Corn, Moon, Pink Moon, Planter's Moon, Planting Corn Moon, Planting Moon, Poinciana Moon, Red Grass Appearing Moon, Ring Finger Moon, Snowdrop Moon, Snowshoe Breaking Moon, Spring Moon, Sprouting Grass Moon, Strawberry Moon, Strong Moon, Sugar Moon

As names go, I am rather fond of "Cherry Blossom Moon" and "Sugar Moon".

Wordless Wednesday - Blue

 

This Festive Budding and Leafing Out

Purple For Earth Day

 

An offering to the Old Wild Mother (Mother Earth, Gaia) on her own special day... The blooms are rooted of course - I could never bring myself to pick a tulip, no matter how many are flowering, but I have the feeling that Mama prefers her botanical offerings unpicked and in their home settings anyway.

Our northern tulips are slow in flowering this year, and this is a pot of happy purples blooming in a sunny southern window and lighting up the whole room with their texture, their vivid color and their fragrance. It always seems to me that in their flowing contours and vibrant hues, tulips express the grace and grandeur and elemental wildness of the world eloquently, and so they make a fine offering to the gracious island in the cosmic sea where we all live and breathe and move around.

With a home as magnificent as the one we have, why are we, as a species, so intent on mucking things up and turning the whole planet into a vast rubbish heap?  I wish I knew.  It is time to relinquish our isolation, acknowledge our kinship with the earth and (in the words of Joanna Macy) come home to our vast, true nature.

This is for you Mama, with my love and deep gratitude.

Like Honey in My Cup

Yesterday afternoon there was snow.  This morning, there is a bitter north wind that furls the first springtime blooms in the garden and nips at the buds on the awakening trees. 

Note to self:  sometimes what we are seeking is right there in front of us at the beginning of day although we see it not.  There is pale sunlight coming through the frosty window panes and high drifting clouds beyond them this morning, the honking of geese as they rise out of the river and take flight for breakfast in local farm fields, the lively chatter of starlings in the old crabapple - they do not rest long enough for me to grab a photo of their antics.

Within, there is the burble and hum of the kettle on the fire, the perfect turquoise glaze of pot and drinking vessels, fragrant steam rising and sweet ambrosia waterfalling into my cup.  What more do I need?

The White and the Gold

Thursday Poem - Why We Tell Stories

For Linda Foster

I
Because we used to have leaves
and on damp days
our muscles feel a tug,
painful now, from when roots
pulled us into the ground

and because our children believe
they can fly, an instinct retained
from when the bones in our arms
were shaped like zithers and broke
neatly under their feathers

and because before we had lungs
we knew how far it was to the bottom
as we floated open-eyed
like painted scarves through the scenery
of dreams, and because we awakened

and learned to speak

2
We sat by the fire in our caves,
and because we were poor, we made up a tale
about a treasure mountain
that would open only for us

and because we were always defeated,
we invented impossible riddles
only we could solve,
monsters only we could kill,
women who could love no one else
and because we had survived
sisters and brothers, daughters and sons,
we discovered bones that rose
from the dark earth and sang
as white birds in the trees

3
Because the story of our life
becomes our life

Because each of us tells
the same story
but tells it differently

and none of us tells it
the same way twice

Because grandmothers looking like spiders
want to enchant the children
and grandfathers need to convince us
what happened happened because of them

and though we listen only
haphazardly, with one ear,
we will begin our story
with the word and

Lisel Mueller

April is National Poetry month, and this is National Poetry Day.  Carry a favorite poem in your pocket today, and recite it, share it with others.  Keep the poetic dream alive.

Wordless Wednesday - First Things, First

For Those in Boston

 

It isn't that I was tuning out yesterday's tragic events in Boston when I wrote my previous post - it is simply that there are dire and bloodthirsty doings that one cannot wrap her mind around.  Yesterday's bombing in Boston was one.
 
I think of the precious lives lost and the injuries suffered, and I am sickened, just sickened.  Light candles and say prayers for those who died and their families, send love and healing energies and good thoughts to those who were injured, reach out to their families too.

This Too Is the Journey

And so it goes, or rather comes and goes.  Much of my time in the last while has been spent with a friend (in her eighties), who is sometimes panicking as her formerly active lifestyle undergoes a seachange and occasionally seems to be vanishing like smoke.

An artist by birth and by calling, my friend is a wild, fierce and goddessy woman with a sharp tongue, a passionate regard for art, travel, poetry, mythology, photography and just plain old watching the world go by.  Now, she is losing her eyesight, her physical equilibrium, her ability to paddle a kayak or drive a motorcycle (a Harley-Davidson Night Rod no less), to pilot an aircraft or simply (as she puts it) go places and do interesting stuff.  It hurts, and there are times when she is frightened, but she is a warrior, and she is working things out.

The lady rocks, and she has always been a mentor and an inspiration. We used to go off on photography expeditions together, climb bluffs and wave our canoe paddles around with abandon.  My own deadlines slip away now, meals are forgotten or charred beyond recognition, television documentaries are missed when she calls, and I roar off to see her, take her hand for a while, tell her stories about my mundane and not-so-mundane potterings, laugh together and rummage through her music collection for a little Mozart, Vivaldi, Miles Davis or Bonnie Raitt.  We probably don't have much time left to journey on together, and I want to be there when she needs me.

"I remember everything", she says, "and behind my eyelids, the colors of the world are dancing like bokeh, like sunlight on the water, summer fireflies or tumbling snowflakes".  In these sweet, poignant and fleeting days, I seldom think of my own health issues except when I must, or when, like a vigilant Zen priest with a Kyosaku stick, a certain one gives me a sharp physical reminder of its presence - something the crab is very good at doing. It too is a right fine teacher.

At Hand As the Day Begins

When Life hands you lemons...

The whys and wherefores of hearts being opened is mysterious

and momentous, giving shape to whole lifetimes.

Edward Espe Brown

Knowing that the month of April is always something of a cusp this far north, a creaking hinge between (and among) the seasons, we try to be ready for quicksilver change, but the views beyond the windows are sometimes a surprise nevertheless. We have been caught napping this week, taken by night, by stealth, by storms and puckish seasonal artifice.

We opened our eyes to falling snow now and again, and it seems there is more to come today, perhaps a reminder from the Old Wild Mother that whatever the works of man (or woman), She still has carriage of the Great Round of time and the seasons.

In a flash of optimism, we invited the family to an outdoor barbecue this weekend, and by golly, we are doing it anyway, but we are doing it indoors in our snug kitchen with its pots and herbs and bowls, the kitchen Buddhas keeping a mindful eye on our efforts and smiling. As small as the kitchen is, guests prefer being there with their welcoming glasses of Prosecco rather than anywhere else when we are doing our culinary thing.

The mindful activity of this morning is stirring up, kneading and baking hamburger buns for a much loved son-in-law who adores burgers but has serious food allergies and can't consume commercial or supermarket stuff.  The feel of the organic flour under my hands and the dough as I knead it is silky and sumptuous, the aroma of baking bread sublime.  The path to enlightenment is a curious thing.

And then there was snow again...

Friday Ramble - Odyssey

Odyssey: (a) an epic poem by the Greek poet Homer describing the exploits of the mythical hero Odysseus as he attempted to return home after the Trojan wars; (b) a long interval of wandering and adventures filled with trials, tribulations and insights; (c) a long voyage; (d) a vision quest or quest of the spirit; (e) the journey to enlightenment.

It's the long walk we are all taking together through the world in this lifetime and many others - a walk which began light years ago when the sparkly stuff of which we are composed danced its way into existence on a faraway star. It's a meandering road of steep climbs, windblown steppes and slippery descents, chock-a-block with twistings and turnings.  There are gauntlets and testings aplenty along the way, but now and then there are kindred spirits to walk along with and fine conversations, surprises waiting around every bend. There are gifts and serendipity experiences, all kinds of them, and there are stunning vistas to be seen from the high places we encounter along the way

The road is bounded (for the most part) by hedgerows, old trees and quiet waters.  It makes its slow way through heights and valleys, spinneys and clearings, lakes and rivers, sunlit fields and orchid bogs. Early morning light at the lake is entrancing, and sunsets there are amazing too.  Maybe, just maybe, there is enlightenment waiting somewhere up ahead on the trail. For now, I am content with moments of fey insight and shy wild knowings. In the words of J.R.R. Tolkien, "the road goes ever on and on. . ."

Springtime glosses and brightens the world, makes all things new.  I awakened to rain this morning, somewhat fuzzy of mind and still moored in a splendid night's ramblings. Beyond the windows, there is a fine grey fog, and umbrellas are blooming like peonies in the street - my lens "sees" the moving headlights out there as coins of silvery bokeh.  In the night's potterings, there were clouds and mountains and exotic sunrises by the handful, a brisk sea wind in my sails, the sound of canvas and creaking ropes, the clear sense of wild journeys and fine adventures waiting somewhere up ahead. It's all good.

Wordless Wednesday - Evergreen Rain

And so it begins...

It begins with skeins of of geese flying in high from the deep south and singing their return, with many happy splashings in local waters and ducks quacking in roadside puddles, with a single heron standing on the ice in the river and (no doubt) wondering what brought her home so early in the season.

It continues with larks and killdeer, beaky snipe and woodcock, with a handful of plucky robins, the graceful "v" shape (dihedral) of five turkey vultures soaring majestically over the Two Hundred Acre Wood and rocking effortlessly back and forth in their flight. Seen from below, the light catches their silvery flight feathers and dark wing linings, and the great birds are as magnificent to me as any eagle.

Then a solitary goshawk perches in a tree on the hill, and a male harrier goes looping over the western field in graceful circles. Both birds are hungry after the long journey home and are training their fierce eyes on the withered grasses intently.

This morning, there is a male cardinal singing his heart out in the ash tree, and an unidentified spring warbler lifts its voice somewhere in the darkness.

There is gladness everywhere, and even the soft rain is a friend.

Lake By Evening Stirred

Rendered Jubilant by Purple

It will be several days before my own crocus bulbs pop into view and do their vibrant blooming thing in the garden behind the little blue house in the village, but I am always cheered and stirred and rendered jubilant by the earlier appearance of these exquisite purples in the sunny protected alcove of a friend's front yard.  My friend is German, and these bulbs came from the village where she was born and grew up.

Everything about these gorgeous creatures says springtime, from their striped leaves and gently nodding heads to their jazzy petals and luminous hearts. After a long dark winter that seemed at times to be endless, (or in popular British parlance downright "chronic"), the little purple wonders made me feel like dancing. They seem to be made of light, and they rock - they absolutely rock.

Hallelujah, it looks as though Lady Spring is on her way at last, and wonder of wonders, She sent an early gift on ahead to dazzle our eyes and warm our winter weary bones.  There is (of course) a goddess named Iris, but methinks there ought to be a goddess named "Crocus" too.

Just a Little Green

Thursday Poem - How Swiftly

How swiftly the strained honey
of afternoon light
flows into darkness

and the closed bud shrugs off
its special mystery
in order to break into blossom:

as if what exists, exists
so that it can be lost
and become precious

Lisel Mueller

Wordless Wednesday - By Late Winter Crowned

Comfort Is Popcorn Tea and Singing Geese

Happiness, or at least contentment, is a fragrant mug of Genmaicha (玄米茶) or brown rice tea quaffed at sunrise.  My favorite blend comes from the Kowloon Market in Chinatown - it was brewed up at first light and lovingly decanted just as waves of Canada geese were passing over the little blue house in the village.

The combination of green tea and roasted brown rice is popularly called popcorn tea because a few grains of rice pop during the roasting and turn the mix into something festive.  In the beginning, my favorite morning potion was imbibed by poorer Japanese, the rice serving as a filler and reducing the cost of the tea in local shops. Genmaicha was once known as the "people's tea", but today it is loved and consumed in vast quantities by all classes of society.

This morning, the great Canadas seemed as happy to be home as I was to hear them singing greetings to the still sleeping world. I raised my mug to them in a return greeting, and it seemed to me that springtime is not only possible - it is not far away.