I love beginnings.
I don't feel that I've seen very many of them; I always seem to be trying to wrap up something that went before. The past year has been a real wake-up call to letting go.
But on a single spring evening's bike ride, I found beginnings everywhere. I saw the first ospreys back from winter, calling in whistled chirps from their nesting platform. The orange-white-black flash of a rufous-sided towhee on a pine branch surprised me, and the shrill warning call of killdeer greeted me at the Dover wetland. Each first bird sighting is its own little celebration. The air will never feel as fresh through the year as it does now, damp and new. And on the way back, I caught the very first frog-croak of evening.
Spring is easy to love. It brings back reminders of all the little joys and possibilities we'd forgotten about in winter.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
the forces that shape us
Walking in the park across the street a few weeks ago, I found this ray of light, seeking something to illuminate. I felt fortunate to capture a moment of its play.
As I look around this spring, I see evidence everywhere of how life is shaped by forces both within and outside of its control. Life and death can be opportunistic, random, necessary, or tragic - like the white bones of two deer I found lying by the railroad track, linked vertebrae and a rib cage neat as erector sets, miraculous even in death. Spring bulbs wake readily to bloom--but it was the freezing sleep that prepared them. Robins arriving in February, tired from their long migration, must wait to eat until winter has finished its work. But when the earthworms rise, a spring rain sends them out onto the park path in search of dry land. They cover the walk like strewn pine needles, and I hopscotch my way around them, smiling. But later, I will see that many of them drowned, never making it back to the grass.
There is so much about our lives that seems unpredictable, and oddly, in this time of new life, it occurs to me just how equal and essential a part of life death is. Not just death, but endurance, struggle, patience, and surrender. All of it, all the faces of the circle, are part of one glorious whole. I have railed against the aspects of my life that I don't like for far too long. I can safely say, with what could be called wisdom if it weren't so obvious, that there is no peace in fighting. Our greatest experience of life, I think, is to embrace it completely. It is from here that we can genuinely enjoy the adventure.
As I look around this spring, I see evidence everywhere of how life is shaped by forces both within and outside of its control. Life and death can be opportunistic, random, necessary, or tragic - like the white bones of two deer I found lying by the railroad track, linked vertebrae and a rib cage neat as erector sets, miraculous even in death. Spring bulbs wake readily to bloom--but it was the freezing sleep that prepared them. Robins arriving in February, tired from their long migration, must wait to eat until winter has finished its work. But when the earthworms rise, a spring rain sends them out onto the park path in search of dry land. They cover the walk like strewn pine needles, and I hopscotch my way around them, smiling. But later, I will see that many of them drowned, never making it back to the grass.
There is so much about our lives that seems unpredictable, and oddly, in this time of new life, it occurs to me just how equal and essential a part of life death is. Not just death, but endurance, struggle, patience, and surrender. All of it, all the faces of the circle, are part of one glorious whole. I have railed against the aspects of my life that I don't like for far too long. I can safely say, with what could be called wisdom if it weren't so obvious, that there is no peace in fighting. Our greatest experience of life, I think, is to embrace it completely. It is from here that we can genuinely enjoy the adventure.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Old and new
A new season doesn't arrive without baggage, all shiny and undented. It grows from what went before. Spring is rife with a chaotic array of fresh and stale, broken and supple, bare truth and sweet promise.
The season's first task is to sort out the old and new, a frenzy of creative reorganization. Last year's frayed bird nests lie naked among the branches, secret havens reduced to bones. Shriveled fruits and bent limbs emerge from melting snow, along with the furry tips of new pussywillow buds. Nearby mountains still bear snowy peaks, but robins' evening songs ring clear.
The one thing that cannot be denied is life's progression. Regardless of trials, losses, dead ends, life's nature is to reach ahead again, to push upward – to find a new place to grow.
The season's first task is to sort out the old and new, a frenzy of creative reorganization. Last year's frayed bird nests lie naked among the branches, secret havens reduced to bones. Shriveled fruits and bent limbs emerge from melting snow, along with the furry tips of new pussywillow buds. Nearby mountains still bear snowy peaks, but robins' evening songs ring clear.
The one thing that cannot be denied is life's progression. Regardless of trials, losses, dead ends, life's nature is to reach ahead again, to push upward – to find a new place to grow.
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