Late Winter/Early Spring

• 4 Comments

•

There's nothing quite like watching Ravens in flight. In my neighborhood, these avian masters take their role on the hill quite seriously, commandeering their landscape with agility.
On a recent day, I spied them overhead, in the task of learning graceful new tricks of exceptional daring.

I was so entranced that I forgot to take a photo, though I watched for over a half hour.
Maybe the sight captivates me, because I remember having those wings myself, in some other time, in some other form. Or maybe I watch in awe because I remember the physical sensation of the breeze under my wings, the joy of multi-dimensional planes of movement, the ability to simply rise in freedom. In this form, transfering from land dweller to the sky happened without thought, and with simply an exhale. Maybe this remembrance of flying returns to us, to a time past, when we flew with the Angels.

The path I took that day echoed with the freshly fallen snow. The day blew windy and cold from a new arctic front; the trees stood stark and dark against the deep blue sky. When I saw this wild blue sky day, I felt called to explore the snowy paths in the woods. The Ravens, when they saw this same blue-sky day, they felt the call to take flight. And fly they did, rising effortlessly to greet the elements of the wind, sun, and trees.

While flying, they called to each other loudly, demonstrating their skills of twirling, and tumbling through the air. Twisting, turning, and tango-ing with and over each other in glee. The chatty ravens shared the air ecumenically. Not letting anyone leader speak louder than the other. They are experienced collaborators on this hill. Not competitors. Laughing in the wind, to the wind, to me, to each other. They rise, float, and shift easily in the wind that gusted up to 40 mph. To them, a windy winter day came as a gift of from heaven. I always feel pure awe while watching flying lessons in progress.

At first, I spied them between the tree limbs, when I only saw three in flight, floating effortlessly. Soon, another group came in view, and a total of seven calling ravens rose and fell in patterns that suited their heart's joy of the moment. They appeared to be practicing skills that maybe they had learned in lighter winds. At times, they flew wing to wing. At other times, without notice, one or two would gracefully branch off to some unknown point of interest, only to quickly rejoin overhead, making new configurations and matching in new spirals of infinity. They laughed as they played with one another. Today, the ravens clearly loved the flying conditions, as though the gusting winds offer a special challenge for their balance, prowess and sentience.

My spectatorship was active in the woods, as I had to move from left to right and back to be able to see their antics as they climbed up, down and over the trees.

I wonder if these are the siblings born a few years ago, who once moved through the woods like restless teenagers. I wonder if the ones I see are teaching younger cousins their daring antics. Or maybe they are parents teaching new fledglings the tricks of the hill. Whoever they be, they have become congenial, graceful, gentle flying coaches modeling perfect harmony in flight.

Incidentally, they knew I was there. Whenever I returned to walk forward on my path, they chortled, making make ever wider circles, to include me in their view. I laughed to hear them discuss matters of such altitude. Concerns of the higher realms, while I remained grounded beneath the leafless landscape, with the trees who bent and bowed in the wings of the wind. My path led to the hill top where, maybe I could see a new vista from a relatively higher altitude. Their vistas must have been tremendous. Their joy was infectious. I felt intimacy with their joy.

If I could, I would continue this conversation, and share in their joy. So, I offer a prayer to them here:

Dear Dear Raven, I promise to remember flying with joy, and to sing with laughter,
I promise to imagine the views from higher perspective.
And I promise to you, to keep communicating with you as a neighbor on this hill,
and to keep my heart open to the winds that blow strong and clear even on cold winter days.

The winds do blow stronger now, reasserting themselves and the sense of winter, after the brief reprieve. And yet... And yet, I feel something has shifted. I feel a new spark in the air.
The sense of wind working hard to reassert control, the sense the sun, which is both a tad higher in the sky and lingers a little longer with us each day bring with it a greater sense of light. I also sense the waters rising in the earth to feed the creeks below the snow's surface. I hear the sounds of the gentle birds tentatively try out their new mating songs. A new day is dawning.

~*~

A postscript: This morning, after writing the above piece, I saw a special gift. When I went out early to feed the birds, dawn was just growing. I do this often, and it is quite peaceful. As I finished spreading the seed, I heard the whoosh-whoosh, whoosh of large wings overhead. I looked up to discover, not a few, not 12, but 22 ravens flying directly overhead! They flew strong and clear, directly East.
Twenty-two of these masters in flight! Together in company of each other as family. Twenty-two, a number associated with both mastery, and with Avatar consciousness. These are not small synchronicities, or coincidences. But momentous signs. The woods are waking, the year arriving with mastery.
Blessings to you

•

There have been times since Imbolc, when I Knew, theoretically, that the waters flowed beneath the surface of the visible. There have been times, when I would hope for a sign of the flowing movement, where here in northern country, the ground froze deep below the snowpack. During these times, I would imagine the wet worlds moving with the life-force, but I could not see it. I could not even see the ground beneath my feet, much less the cheerful spring waters that bubble and cleanse. These have been invisible, even here, in my habitually very wet world.

Unlike me, the trees Did Know Spring was arriving. They responded to the rising light with swelling buds and flowing sap. The willows down in the valley began the transformation of turning their brown limbs to gold in the warming sun. The birds Did Know too. They sing their mating songs gleefully as they congregate, and the deer, who begin their migrations, Knew too.

Me? I continued to simply hold faith, that though the ground was hidden 3 feet below my feet, though the mornings dried the overnight ice, though the winds were bitter and cold, that somewhere, deep within, the waters were moving. And that somehow, sometime soon, we would see it with our own eyes too.

Then, 2 weeks ago, it all began to melt, flow, spread. The mysterious force of life, the carrier of light, pushed out and through, to reveal and transform. Since then, the meltings, the ice floes, the fog, the springs, the creeks, the streams, the rivers, the waterfalls, the clouds have burbled and bubbled with a stunning primal force. Everything wet has sprung, and transformed without pause. The Waters Have Returned, gloriously.

When my own senses, my own skin couldn't feel it, I knew to turn to my guides: the birds who knew; the winds who knew.; the trees who knew. I trust them.

Now, at last, the shift has happened - I hear, feel and see the moving waters which tumble below the snows, or rise up and out of the frozen. I hear and feel the creeks flowing, day, and night, and the dusk air full of moisture. A thickness moving the gloaming. I also hear the enhanced calls of the wild animals sharing their excitement of Spring. And all this change brings the gentlest of feelings. A calming, a trust.

During this period, there was one morning, when the unmistakable call came. We all know this sound. And when we hear it, we all turn to each other and say, "they're back!" And we look upward to see if we can see them too. This sound brings us to a full stop; a rare moment without urgency, we listen, pause, feel and breathe in, deeply. The activities of the planet all stop and pause with us, when the calls of the geese announce their return. Never do we tire of this gift.

This year, when the call came, I was walking in the woods, in the morning, and the sound stopped me mid-step. Looking up, I wondered, "How can such a simple sound signify so much meaning?" I whispered to the geese, that I could spy through the bare tree limbs, "Did you bring this Spring on your wings? when you flew overhead? Did the very beating of your wings initiate the change? and now Spring can burst forth?" "Did your ancient call open a portal that gave the signal to open the gates for these gifts?" I do not know. What I do know, is that the air shifted, my heart stilled, the wind gentled. I breathed in this miracle of life deeply. All rushing ceased. I arrived in a moment of no time.

In early March, I find, I can barely imagine new life, or the feel of springing steps in the soft mud that we mire through. And then, the geese call, and then life burgeons within; it all seems possible again. Now, like the geese who fly miles in companionship in simple faith, I too can gather my visions of community, trust and softness to remind me of the possibility of green fields ahead. I hold steady, in flight and in hope, for the dawning of the new day.

Happy Equinox Blessings

• 5 Comments

•

The sky holds the promise of snow today ~
A pink light at dawn, leading to a thickening of cloud-covers overhead. The growing sunshine, which graces us in January, and began this day, ebbs into a deepening. A rising wind will soon call forth the water gathered in these clouds. The very ones that suggest a great snow fall is a-coming.

This possibility, this promise excites me. When the snow falls, I sense a presence, one I can glimpse with the contrast in light and dark, like when the trees hold a background tableau, or the frosty tree tips glow, or the snow lands, covering large swaths of land, transforming what was yesterday, into something new.

Like emissaries, the snow arrives with import, individual expression, and in various languages. Some snows blow sideways, on a wind blown free from the ocean, miles away. Others spiral in intricate patterns in response to eclectic celestial music. And Always the lightness of the snow contrasts the darkness of the treetrunks and branches. All these snowfalls contain a palpable conversation, offered in their unique language. Saying, convening meanings and feelings on their path to landing. Ones that I hope to receive.

I love to watch how the water, air, trees and sun will interact in this felt presence. How they create a conversation like no other, like one between friends. I feel riveted to listening to and witnessing this music and dance, as if all this might teach me something about this thing called being alive, this moment of life,
about me, about you.

I seek to touch this consciousness.

As spirals of white descend in deepening spirals, tree roots, trunks and limbs reach upward in an ascending patterns unique to themselves ~
A continuous flowing stream of conversation and movement.
Myriad threads of moonlight and earthlight interweave in descending and ascending patterns
building a deepening sense of wonder and miracles,
Building a dance of opposites,
creating something new, something ne'er seen before.

The unnameable mixing with and into solid form

I started this post with the desire to find words to "capture" the essences of snow. I hoped I would find a name to give to the snow, that I could be as literate as the Inuit who knew the names of their relations that came in the winter falls.

By the end of this post,
I have surrendered to, come to acceptance of not knowing.
I have found my emptying out of my names and categories, of words and structure, of definable. I understand, in doing so, I have come closer to conveying the sense of the unknowable. I find in this surrender a greater felt sense of the beauty and vastness within the ephemeral, and eternal.

Indeed, within me exists a desire to Understand. To Define, to Describe.
And within me there is also the wise knowing to release all those efforts and witness with compassion to the unfolding. The wise knowing mixes with the mind, just as the earthlights and moonlights mix on the breath of snow, a knowing and unknowing, a spiraling dance

Lovely and ever-changing.

Sun will break through the clouds after this snow,
illuminating with impossible brightness.

"We lose when we try to control;
we gain divinity when we surrender." Laurie Herron

•

Passing some grand old maples one day, it occurred to me that one of the many reasons why going into nature uplifts our spirits is that nature points to a way to live our lives: Showing us how to live in joy, how to live without self-criticism, how to live in the moment, how to live in faith and hope.  Everywhere in nature we see an essential, authentic magnificent expression of itself.  Everywhere, we have examples of life demonstrating life in faith. Each part from the microscopic to macroscopic responds to what is present, no more and no less.

For example, it would be humorous to imagine a tree worrying about its appearance, or whether it will get enough, or holding itself back from sun, water, and the nourishment from wind, sun and love. Or wondering what is the right thing to do. In fact, the opposite is true, the trees declare, in this emerging Spring, Look at me, See how grand I am, See how Wide my canopy is, Look how wild and free I am. The trees are reaching for the sun, training their branches to move into every glimpse of daylight making sometimes the most unusual twists and turns as they grow.  We see them standing at the top of the hill expressing their innate sense of beauty and grandeur.

No, a tree does not worry about not having enough. It trusts, knowing that it has all that it needs in this very moment.  And the next moment will bring more of what it needs to allow it to respond to life. And this intrinsic truth is also true for us: each moment brings us all that we need.  Even if there may be much we could worry about, or the answers to our questions seem unimaginable, untenable, ungraspable,  in truth, at each crossroad, we are given what we need for that moment.  At every stage we find the strength, the courage, the inner guidance to steer us to our destiny.  This promise is given to us, is reflected in nature, is demonstrated over and over in our courageous lives.  It is not the worst-case scenario that drops us to oblivion, it is our worry over its possibility.

Listening, as I have learned to do in the company of trees has taught me to be present in each moment to hear the inner guidance, to trust the inner voice that leads us to better possibilities than we could imagine for ourselves.

This time of unfoldment is unprecedented for most of the world.  Fighting it makes the process more uncomfortable; allowing for it to unfold like a flower of many, many petals will bring wonder and delight.

Blessings

 

•

Thoughts of writing on this blog have fallen down and in between the roots of this soulful winter in which so much internal metamorphosis took priority.  Starting from the transformative solstice (soulstice) to this fast paced month of February, deep layers of thought, emotion, and consciousness have risen from within our beings to be examined, refined and winnowed.

Until now, I have been unable to articulate this process and its relation to the tree beings. Here, I hope to return to a more regular sharing of the messages from the woods.

Today, on the walk to the sunny spot in the forest, these words came to me: "as the snow softly melts, seeping into deep the layers of the earth below, slowly and almost imperceptibly it begins to reveal the ground on which we stand. As it melts, so too will clarity slowly, inevitably be revealed for all that perplexes, confounds and restricts your joy."

Then I wondered, in that moment, what in me needs to melt before this gentle clarity can bless me, too. Before it can come, and come it will in its perfect time,  what receptivity to warmth, light and hope do I require?

In the forest, snow melts gently into the cover of last year's fallen leaves.  The gentle melting of ice allows for the perfect seasoning of this fabric of botany that lives beneath the surface of leaf mould. Have you ever pushed back the top layer of leaves in a forest and seen the intricate and delicate weave of sinuous roots? Roots quickly extends small shoots into this environment gaining purchase into this realm of moisture and nutrients.  It appears that the growing tendrils savor the nourishment and life present in this layer.

This layer welcomes the frozen water that has fallen this winter in its crystalline wonder.   As in any Emoto experiment, the snow captured the essence of the energy through which it froze. (http://www.masaru-emoto.net/english/water-crystal.html)   As the crystals melt, the water releases the gifts of this essence to the trees.

As I contemplate this process, I begin to see that as I seek clarity in this early Spring light, expecting to get all the information before it is ready to be released/revealed is futile.  The release has its own timing.  The forest floor patiently awaits the full release of this information, whether it be in snow melt, spring rains, or morning dew.  Slowly the truth will be revealed. Then, too, we will feel clear; like a spring morning when hope is restored and the unfathomable seems conceivable.

•

IMG_4640

It has been my devotion to visit the mountain nearby and listen to the wisdom there.  One winter-ends day, I sat on my cushion and listened.  My physical ears could hear a faint crinkle, seeping sound.  I realized I was hearing the already thin ice in the winter sun melting into the thawing earth.

I stayed still to listen.  Then I heard this counsel: I can let the water that is seeping into the earth itself, also nourish My roots.  This seems like vital news on this day when winter has made me thin in longing for growth, change, and visible fruit of my labor.

After sharing these thoughts with a fellow traveler, the insights multiplied to include further aspects of our being.  The insights are based on a 5 element understanding of our constitutions.  Here is the summary:

The water that is seeping through the earth to my roots, feeds them which in turn feed the wood of my being.  The wood grows, allowing the fire to burn stronger and safer,  revealing the true metal within me.

At the end of this long winter, with shiftings within ourselves, our communities and the Earth  I welcome rediscovering my own elements within.