Mist came this morning
Ushering in vastness,
Covering the browns and ochres,
The twists and turns,
The shiftings of melting snow,
Changing the landscape.
Behind this Veil of unseeing, life disassembles
all knowing.
Birds are returning North. Oh, the sound of those words almost reflect the wonder I feel in seeing their flight across the fields, above the trees, or out of the mist, bringing a lifting of life within as they follow the upward lift of air with agility. Hope is close to what I feel in the stream of this sight.
Rising hope,
like the sap that rises during mud season, sounds amazing. This day, I feel less agile than these feathered ones, and the wise trees. I feel upturned with the fits and starts of the year's changing season. One moment sunshine joy from the treetops to the cat's toes. The next one, introspective with fuzziness of concern, while snow lends a gentle blanket to all creatures on the ground, reminding us to return to deep meditative silence. Gifting us with the return of cold, to return us to the quiet that holds.
Then hours later, when the frozen stillness thaws, and sap is pouring from the maple trees, filling buckets with possibility like clear ambrosia, then the trail before me emerges, and clarity of hope returns.
Yet, I do not hold this clarity easily right now. When the ice arrives, hardening the Earth below my feet, I feel a confusion, Questions and fear. I feel these concerns, these fits and starts, tying me into knots.
I know beneath the visible, the trees prepare for growth. I know the unknown mysteries hold magic. Yet, my blood runs, like the season, in fits and starts, thickening, and thawing.
The mist that rises this morning from the river in the valley comforts me. As I watch the mist fill the rises and falls of the river valley floor, a large flock of Robins flitters up and out from the trees there. The Robins bounce up and bounce down, fluttering together loosely, as they fly, moving vaguely northwest.
Out of the veil, this morning, arrives a clear harbinger of Spring. Out of the unknown valley of mist, comes the vision we crave, the answers we seek. Offerings, like possibilities, and freeing me from my shackles of coagulating thoughts, unfreezing my heart of the entanglements of fears.
The trees know to wait, to rise, and rest in the slow gradual process of Spring. To thaw and pause. The trees trust this path gracefully, holding the snow of yesterday in their arms like prayers. Prayers for those of us who cannot see yet. Cannot yet trust that the step is there, just behind the curtain of mist and time. The impossible is indeed possible. The trees know to offer prayers for the world to restore the heart of peace.
I read recently, in To Speak for the Trees, that trees have a tryptophan-tryptamine pathway just as humans do, in our minds, to generate neurons for thinking ~ in other words, Trees think ~ They generate pathways of thought, to which, like humans and other sentient beings, they respond.
Today, They are holding their arms out in prayer, in gratitude in joy, in quiet, in offering.
May I be like the trees and the flying birds with all their grace, beauty, wisdom and knowing. Knowing when to rise up and take flight to the north of my dreams. And when to settle down into quiet meditative silence, listening to the whispers of change that hint at the possible, if unseen, hint at the change, hidden within and without the moving mist, which presents like a riddle. And may I Trust this magic to bring needed transformation learning to rest, allowing for Mystery to reshape, renew us, and allow us to emerge as new in the rising light of Spring.
" Let it carry you away, Let it carry you away...
To Remind all restless souls of the beauty of being here at all." J Gonzales
