April rains brings a Sunday walk
This morning was very damp and foggy from the 1st real spring rain. There was lightning, thunder and hail last night but this morning was quiet. The robins were getting their breakfast and birdsong filled the air. I decided to take a walk back to Sweetwood woods and look around. In particular I wanted to go down to the ravine and see if Sweetwood’s little stream was running or not. The spring itself starts about 50 feet uphill from the South fence line and then runs down through Sweetwood. Usually a little bit of the water from the spring makes it to Sweetwood land and then the silt of the ravine acts like a sponge and absorbs the flowing stream.
But when it rains and the land is juicy there is this happy little stream running from the south fence line to the north fence line of Sweetwood and carves off the Western slope filled with sugar maple trees. So I went down the stream and sure enough it was running and singing or so it seemed to me. It was a happy stream making all kinds of laughing and joyous noise. I went to a spot where another small little ravine came down to greet the main ravine and stream. When I look back uphill what I saw was an emerald stair way of stone. This luscious green stood out in a forest of brown. What a lovely site! I sat there listening to the stream flow by my feet and a chorus of birds singing as a moment stood still and then moved on like the stream.
This moment was so magical as an early morning mist encircled the woods and sight was limited to about 200 feet. I wondered about my past and these moments being but gems on the necklace of my life. The future will have a moment where I will be back here again and the woods will be older and I will view a new beauty and wonder about that time before when I had sat here thinking about this moment.
My spirits stirred and I moved and walked the Western slope of Sweetwood land. There I found large sugar maples all so glorious, reflecting their character in striving for the sun. Some trees have lost major limbs but were healing and had beautiful crowns. Some trees look like they were hugging one another and grew together creating an archway to walk under. Some trees had big burls reflecting some kind of injury that they healed from. I was walking among elders who were young before I was born and my soul was stirred by their earth wisdom.
Oh to come to Sweetwood land in early spring and see its naked beauty. Put aside the distractions of being modern for all its good and sense and experience the Mystery, the Divineness of Nature in a simple landscape left to be itself. Be part of the moment by a spring stream whose bones are rocks clothed in emerald moss. This is what the contemporary soul yearns for, to be rooted in and to touch the past, ancestral knowledge and conscious of the precious now reaching for a being that is both humble and cosmic.
Such was my walk on a wet and dreary but juicy Sunday. It filled my heart with these words which came bubbling up from the spring of my soul. What a lovely thought that I too was replenished by lightning, thunder, hail and rain and my winter self is flowing away. Now the green shoot of my soul rises above of what was and the green man is renewed once more. This is the way of Nature’s religion making whole the human being no matter what age it is. So come kin, kissing cousins of this way and dance around the Beltane pole when May comes once again. Rejoice in being a woman or a man for there is a great mystery at hand that we dance to.
This morning was very damp and foggy from the 1st real spring rain. There was lightning, thunder and hail last night but this morning was quiet. The robins were getting their breakfast and birdsong filled the air. I decided to take a walk back to Sweetwood woods and look around. In particular I wanted to go down to the ravine and see if Sweetwood’s little stream was running or not. The spring itself starts about 50 feet uphill from the South fence line and then runs down through Sweetwood. Usually a little bit of the water from the spring makes it to Sweetwood land and then the silt of the ravine acts like a sponge and absorbs the flowing stream.
But when it rains and the land is juicy there is this happy little stream running from the south fence line to the north fence line of Sweetwood and carves off the Western slope filled with sugar maple trees. So I went down the stream and sure enough it was running and singing or so it seemed to me. It was a happy stream making all kinds of laughing and joyous noise. I went to a spot where another small little ravine came down to greet the main ravine and stream. When I look back uphill what I saw was an emerald stair way of stone. This luscious green stood out in a forest of brown. What a lovely site! I sat there listening to the stream flow by my feet and a chorus of birds singing as a moment stood still and then moved on like the stream.
This moment was so magical as an early morning mist encircled the woods and sight was limited to about 200 feet. I wondered about my past and these moments being but gems on the necklace of my life. The future will have a moment where I will be back here again and the woods will be older and I will view a new beauty and wonder about that time before when I had sat here thinking about this moment.
My spirits stirred and I moved and walked the Western slope of Sweetwood land. There I found large sugar maples all so glorious, reflecting their character in striving for the sun. Some trees have lost major limbs but were healing and had beautiful crowns. Some trees look like they were hugging one another and grew together creating an archway to walk under. Some trees had big burls reflecting some kind of injury that they healed from. I was walking among elders who were young before I was born and my soul was stirred by their earth wisdom.
Oh to come to Sweetwood land in early spring and see its naked beauty. Put aside the distractions of being modern for all its good and sense and experience the Mystery, the Divineness of Nature in a simple landscape left to be itself. Be part of the moment by a spring stream whose bones are rocks clothed in emerald moss. This is what the contemporary soul yearns for, to be rooted in and to touch the past, ancestral knowledge and conscious of the precious now reaching for a being that is both humble and cosmic.
Such was my walk on a wet and dreary but juicy Sunday. It filled my heart with these words which came bubbling up from the spring of my soul. What a lovely thought that I too was replenished by lightning, thunder, hail and rain and my winter self is flowing away. Now the green shoot of my soul rises above of what was and the green man is renewed once more. This is the way of Nature’s religion making whole the human being no matter what age it is. So come kin, kissing cousins of this way and dance around the Beltane pole when May comes once again. Rejoice in being a woman or a man for there is a great mystery at hand that we dance to.
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