Early spring reveals bare bones: curving lines of thorny cane, tangles of grapevine knots, ashy remnants of a prairie-burn. These sights seem to fit with this week of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, when we are reminded of the bare bones of suffering and death. Sometimes the bareness clears the way for glimpses of new life: fungi on a fallen tree trunk, a secret store, a lilac bud.
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More of the spring roller-coaster ride. Friday was warm and lovely and John called from work and said, "Let's have a picnic supper." So we did, walking through Witmer Woods down to the college cabin. We found a number of trees with tassels of various sorts. And one lone sock, left on a campus sidewalk, presumably while the owner reveled in walking barefoot through the grass.
The warmth brought the daffodils out -- just in time for the cold temperatures and inch of snow early this week. But today the sun is shining, the daffodils are still bright yellow, and I've spotted a fox sparrow running from bush to bush in my backyard (first time I've ever seen one here -- and he's going too fast for a photo). Spring is the bright white and gold of crocus pushing their way up through green pachysandra in a sheltered window well. Spring is also the muck and mess of dirty piles of snow slowly melting on a gray cloudy day. It's a path through woods that are still wintry gray and it's sun on last year's sunlit leaf hanging by this year's bud. It's the mud in the middle of the path and it's the new life tentatively emerging.
Finally we've made the transition to spring. it has warmed up enough that heading out for a walk is pleasant, rather than a major undertaking, and I've been gathering signs of spring.
Today I'm seeing ducks as they waddle their way through our neighborhood, checking out our backyard for nesting possibilities, and the neighbor's drive for other modes of transportation. Midwinter spring is its own season Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown, Suspended in time, between pole and tropic. Little Gidding, T.S. Eliot "Midwinter spring" seems like an appropriate label for these days, even though Eliot was writing about a warm midwinter in England, and ours is a spring that keeps slipping back to midwinter. Several batches of balloons blew into our back yard one day when the sun was out and the snow had mostly melted and the calendar declared spring had arrived. So I tied them on the birdfeeder in celebration of spring. The photo above was what they looked like the next day, March 21. Below there is a slideshow of the corner of our front flower bed where the snowdrop bulbs are planted. I took these about every two days between March 3 and 18, eagerly watching for the snowdrops as the snow came and went. And came and went. And came and went. Even with the sempiternal snow, the snowdrops lived up to their name! (If you receive this as an email, you may need to go to the actual website to see the slideshow. The cycle ends with a photo of snowdrops with white blooms). Every fall my congregation takes an annual retreat, spending the weekend at Camp Friedenswald in Michigan. Every year Steve Shantz introduces the children to the Survival Game, every year there's a talent show full of gifts of music and friendly chuckles, every year (if the weather cooperates) there's singing and a campfire at the Hollow. And every year -- if the weather cooperates -- I make a pilgrimage around to the spring on the other side of the lake.
It's a lovely hike through the woods, around to the spot where clear water comes bubbling up into a small sandy basin, less than a foot across, and then flows away towards the lake, turning the rocks a rusty color due to the high iron content in the water. The camp has upgraded the steps down to the spring and added a bridge across the stream. Last Saturday afternoon several of us sat and chatted there, basking in the unusually warm weather and watching the spring bubble, and the sunlight scribbling mysterious messages on the water. We played too, making boats out of nutshells and sending them downstream, where they all promptly ran aground on mats of fallen leaves. There's a lot of water flowing though, so perhaps one day they'll make it to the lake and float off to unknown adventures. The prairie plantings on campus are mostly yellow with tickseed at the moment. I continue to be intrigued by the occasional purple spiderwort -- with thanks to Barbara T. for alerting me to the name of this native plant. Whatever its name, it seems to be celebrating light and springtime.
Over the years, our front entrance has developed from a plain, straight walk to a small entry garden, which in the summer provides us with a bit of screening from a busy College Avenue. It's full of hosta, columbine, vinca and clematis at the moment, looking lush and green, with highlights of pale purple and gold-green.
For years, I've been wanting a trellis by the front door, to screen off the water meter and some other mechanical elements. This past week, Penny Yarman put together a trellis for me, based on a rough sketch I gave her, adapting the pattern of the trellis that sits in the corner by our living room windows. That one has a clematis vine that is just starting to bloom. I'll probably plant something similar for the new trellis. A definite spark of light this week, as are these views of flowers from that front garden. With longer days and warmer weather, John and I are once again able to take after-supper walks. On Tuesday evening we headed over to the millrace, which was both peaceful and bustling -- the water was still and full of reflections, while the bike-path was busy with walkers, runners and bikers. And there was plenty of action down by the water as well . . .boys and geese, geese and swans, muskrat and greens..... I discovered a secret conclave of preachers out in the woods yesterday -- a crowd of jack-in-the-pulpits. The names seems to fit best with an ornate pulpit style, complete with canopy, and a tripartite leaf to go with it. Dark red trillium continues the trinitarian theme, but wild ginger goes with a heart shape. And the feathers below, each about an inch or two long, came floating down out of a clear blue sky this afternoon, along with twenty or so others, gently wafting on the breeze. I couldn't spot a source.
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My approach to contemplative photography --
"Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." Mary Oliver in "Sometimes" Archives
August 2020
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