Spring has arrived in northern Indiana. But then, it has been arriving for some time. This post goes back in time, to early April, and the days of brown woods (but mossy paths) and the first crocus and windflowers. By the end of that week, the green gauze of leaves opening was washing through the woods.

May was a full month, beginning with a retreat at Lindenwood Retreat Center in Donaldson, IN, and moving on through yard and household projects in addition to the usual things. I took photos, but haven't had time or energy to post. So, over the next few days, we'll have a May retrospective.

Thanks to cooler weather, the blossoms of redbud and crabapple trees lasted longer than usual. Both were in view at our Great Lakes Mennonite Spiritual Directors retreat, which had the theme of Abundant Life in Liminal Spaces. The labyrinth was a recurring image of "liminal space". The group that walked the labyrinth for a spiritual practices session discovered that geese had been there before them, leaving "gifts" along the way. Initially frustrated by this, the group decided that actually this was a lot like life -- that often the thresholds of change and transition, the liminal spaces, have a lot of messiness about them. (How appropriate to be reminded the following Sunday, Pentecost, that one Celtic image for the Holy Spirit is wild geese.)

There were plenty of wild geese in the small lake, and a turtle sunning itself on our one beautiful sunny warm day, and an osprey soaring above its nest and perch in a nearby field.

I had an hour or so out in the woods at Pathways Retreat Center last Saturday, one of the first really warm sunny days this spring. The upper branches were still bare, but the greening has started. Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th century German abbess, musician, theologian and visionary, wrote of the greening power of God, or viriditas (Latin for greenness).  Greening, freshness, vitality, life-force, growth -- it's in sight all around us this time of year. Green flames everywhere I looked -- and a few golden touches as well. Enjoy the green, and celebrate Earth Day this Friday.

For liturgical churches, purple is the color of Lent, the season we are now in, the forty days plus Sundays leading up to Easter. The word itself comes from the Old English word for spring, and is related to various Germanic languages meaning the lengthening of days. These crocus celebrate the purple and glow with the spring light.

In northern Indiana, we're at one of the year's hinges (how appropriate that yesterday was Leap Day!). One day the glimpses of white are the snowdrops coming up through brown leaves and green pachysandra, and the calligraphy of bare white sycamore branches lit by the sun.
A day or two later, those snowdrops are covered with snow and the only "flowers" to be seen are icy caps on dried seedheads. One sunlit clump of snow reminds me of cupped hands -- holding the thought of spring, perhaps? A day later, the snow is gone, and the snowdrops have grown several inches. And I spot early crocus, white and yellow, in my south-facing window well. Despite today's winter weather advisory, spring is on its way.

Simple springtime pleasures -- whether it is reflections of the sun on a golden coreopsis on a sunny morning after a rainy night, or blue sky and green plants reflected in droplets on a blade of grass, or later in the day, the soft pinks of a peony in full bloom, or dandelion seeds just setting sail, or bright coreopsis in early morning sunshine, or phlox in early evening light, spring is a time of beauty in many small things.

I had a retreat day at the cottage at Pathways Retreat this week and had the good fortune to be there on a breezy, sun-soaked spring day. I was surrounded by green woods, leaves dancing between light and shadow, the rustle of the breeze in the trees, bright bursts of pine scent, and a few white blossoms.

Our spring may be a little later than usual this year, but it's following the same patterns. Our crabapple tree was covered with pink blossoms for about a week, while the delicate green miniature iris bloomed in the herb bed.

A robin built its nest in the yew beside the driveway, right at eye level, making it easy to keep an eye on the fledglings. A recent walk along the race gave glimpses of several families of mallards, with ducklings ready to turn on the turbo jets to keep up with mom. And the three or four mature rabbits who had been feasting in our yard at twilight seem to have vanished -- but at least two of their descendants have been enjoying the clover and the odd flower or two (but so far the fence has kept them out of the garden).

We returned from our travels to find green had arrived in Goshen while we were gone, reminding me of a short song learned from a college friend on a long trip years ago:
    To ope' their trunks the trees are never seen.
    How then do they put on their robes of green?
    They leaf them out.

Green's not the only color in sight, as flowers begin to blossom. Along the path we've been walking near the dam, there's the light purple of wild geranium along with the new spring green leaves. And there are the maroon bells of paw paw trees, with the maroon echoed in the trillium flowers below.

More from Tuesday's stroll through the Shoup-Parsons Woods, with spring flowers flourishing. The may apples are spreading green umbrellas, jack-in-the-pulpits proclaim spring, a fallen "caterpillar" blossom curves gracefully on a piece of bark. I bent to take a photo of trillium ready to open, and was amazed by an eight inch lacy leaf skeleton wrapping the fallen log beside them. And a little further along the path, I discovered a whole congregation of jack-in-the-pulpits. They were a pale green in comparison with the first two I saw -- a different variety or different growing conditions or just further along in their growth?

By the way, the bronze-colored trees nearing blossom that I posted last week turn out to be buckeyes and native to Indiana. Thanks, Aaron Sawatsky-Kingsley for the identification!

I was able to get down to the path along the millrace and through the woods by the dam during a brief period of sunshine yesterday. Glorious new green growth is opening everywhere -- interspersed with the greys and tans of last year's remnants. And the occasional bright red and yellow flash of a red-winged blackbird, and the echo of its konk-la-ree call. Springtime!

We went into the woods by the dam this afternoon. A week ago this was all browns and grays. Today there was a hint of green and, if you looked carefully, tiny wild flowers scattered here and there. I can guess at a few: trout lily, mayapple, trillium, dutchman's breeches. But what's in a name? We enjoyed the sighting of them and their colors and new life, whether or not we could name them.

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.

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).