March Magic

by | Mar 17, 2018 | Garden/Yard, Geology/Weather, Mammals, Nature, Wonderment

Don’t Miss March’s Launch of Spring

“If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy
it will in the end not produce food either,” Joseph Wood Krutch.

Too many people miss March’s majesty by staying indoors. After all it’s usually too warm to enjoy cross country skiing or ice fishing and it’s too early to plant the garden, go fishing, or play golf. March is the month of mud, fog, slowly melting grit-encrusted snowbanks, and clammy cold.

At Winding Pathways, we defy normal behavior and spend March days outdoors. It’s the month of great change and nature’s cavalcade is there for any observant person to enjoy.

Just consider the earth and how it’s turning toward our sun. Days lengthen the most around the March 21st Vernal Equinox. This means there is more sunlight each day allowing our yard to soak up more solar energy and spark spring’s revival of life.

March is the month to pull on mud boots and venture outdoors with eyes and ears attuned to the great seasonal change upon us. Here are some things to absorb with great joy:

 Birds.

Migration has started. Look up! Way up. Skeins of geese wing high overhead, perhaps so high they are mere specs. Binoculars bring them closer. And their distant and distinct song is music to winter weary ears. Salute their northward journey with a hearty, “Welcome Back!” Many smaller birds are on the prowl, but it may take a close look to notice them. Within a month juncos disappear shortly after red winged blackbirds make their annual debut. Sparrows begin crafting messy nests as goldfinches swap their drab winter outfits for glorious yellow garb. Barred owls fill the night air with haunting cries of WHO COOKS FOR YOU FOR YOU. Sometimes they are in a black oak almost over our roof and startle us awake with their lusty calls.

Mammals.

Even as winter’s song hangs on, baby squirrels are nestling in tree cavities and rapidly growing on a diet of mom’s rich milk. Squirrels are among nature’s most attentive mothers. In another month or two they encourage their babies to venture outdoors. Cottontails begin mating, buck deer begin growing new antlers, chipmunks are increasingly active, and raccoons and opossums prowl the nocturnal yard seeking dinner. On warm misty nights they gorge on nightcrawlers that have emerged on the lawn’s surface to mate.

 Plants.

We’re always delighted to find stinging nettles springing out of the still cold earth toward the end of March. There’s no better tasting or nutritious cooked green than a short pile of steaming bright green nettles on the dinner plate. It’s the best time of the year to enjoy tender dandelions leaves in salad. We like the non-bitter blanched leaves discovered under a carpet of oaks. By summer, these leaves are too tough and bitter to enjoy. But, now, they are delicious and nutritious. We can pluck them because we have a spray-free yard.

Spring’s miracle sound.

Sometimes this miraculous sound happens in March but always by early April. Nature’s most promising song comes at vespers each spring, usually in the calendar interval where Easter can fall – March into April. Spring peepers and chorus frogs herald the season each evening. As Christians worldwide celebrate Easter by saying HE IS RISEN, Chorus frogs and peepers enthusiastically seem to announce SPRING IS COMING!

Go Outside! Don’t miss the great vernal seasonal turn. March isn’t a month to huddle by the television. It’s a month to be outside.

 

 

 

 

2017 Labyrinths

by | Jan 18, 2018 | 1080 Labyrinth Blog, Labyrinths, Reflections/Profiles, Wonderment

Finding Center

Nelda, Teri, and Wahneta constructing the Phoenix Harmony Labyrinth.

Midwest by West by Southwest, I walked several labyrinths and with the help of several stellar friends re-created the labyrinth in our front yard. With the help of wonderful friends, the five-circuit Phoenix Harmony Labyrinth replaced the seven-circuit Classical labyrinth.  The magnolia that was dying came down and a small bur oak took its place. New circuits were measured and established. And, a lovely cross-quarter day dedication ceremony welcomed the Phoenix Harmony Labyrinth. All summer, fall and early winter pilgrims walked in groups and individually helping to settle in the labyrinth in our front yard.

We traveled north into Minnesota, East to New York, West to Washington State, and Southwest to Arizona enjoying labyrinths and solitude along with communing with friends and family.

The 1080 Labyrinth blog picture gallery documents the travels, the travails, and the joys.

 

Packing Up Christmas

by | Jan 4, 2018 | Labyrinths, Reflections/Profiles, Wonderment

Two articles from The Gazette have sat on my desk for months waiting. Like Advent. Waiting. And, now, with the Holiday Season wrapping up, Epiphany within, Bowls in full swing, and the New Year upon us, these two articles are more poignant than ever.

“Packing Away the Legos – and a Piece of My Son’s Childhood” by hospice worker, Kerry Egan, for the Washington Post; and “Building Blocks of Launching Good Memories”, by Lori Borgman with the Tribune News Services invite readers to reflect on changes in our lives. These rites of passage of growing up or “small deaths” of changes in our relations and the ultimate loss of life itself, and memories we create can help us as we positively navigate the twists and turns of life.

2017 was a year of saying “Goodbye” which also opened space and opportunity. Our bunny, Simon, had his last stretch out in the winter sun and then died peacefully in our arms.  He is buried out back with the other bunnies. We still miss him, yet laugh when we think about how he would move back into the sun as it’s rays moved across the den floor. When we travel now, it’s only the needs of our chickens we consider.

Our daughter and son-in-law’s grand adventures of moving to Alaska for a job and an epic bicycle-fish ride along the West Coast put them geographically farther away, yet they share about intriguing places and Rich connects through his time in Alaska and his fishing stories.

Deconstructing the 1080 Laughing Labyrinth was hard yet joyful! As the prairie plants continued to encroach, maintaining and walking it were increasingly difficult and unrewarding. Finally, I just took it apart. For a long time I sat with, “Now what?” Then, from the ashes arose the Phoenix Harmony Labyrinth that friends helped create, dedicate and regularly walk. Opening space and opportunity.

Sometimes we just know when it’s time to formally say, “Goodbye”. A position. A relationship. We move along in life. Sometimes it’s sad. Other times a relief. To grieve is important and yet, we can choose to remember the positive memories that were the bond even as we open space to new possibilities.

Other “Goodbyes” come from literally clearing out space. Digitalizing pictures, respectfully releasing boxes of slides and photos, then making small photo albums. Deleting old computer files. Lo and behold, the hard drive has more space! Reading journals and old letters one last time, then taking them to the fire pit and letting memories float to the ethers.  Tenderly touching favorite but no longer read books and giving them away for others to enjoy and love.  Lesson plans and manuals from former teaching gigs represent so much time and effort and possibility.  Now, they just take up space. So, it’s time to let them go. And the file drawers no longer bulge uncomfortably. Unworn clothes, unused kitchen items, old tools, multiples of anything, find new homes, the list goes on and on.

Suddenly the home is spacious, clean and lighter!

The last task of this year for me is packing away Christmas and browsing the cards people sent us.  Building memories to last into the New Year and looking forward to the new. Wondering, where have we been all our lives.

The Work of Christmas

by | Dec 28, 2017 | Reflections/Profiles, Wonderment

“When the song of angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the brothers (and sisters),
to make music in the heart.”  Howard Thurman