Spring is gently asserting herself here in central Connecticut, and Luna and I spent our entire afternoon outside in her company yesterday where temperatures hovered right around sixty degrees Fahrenheit.
The snow is finally melting back in my gardens, and extended patches of bare ground are emerging, especially on the south side of buildings and evergreens. I spent my hours in and among the blackberry canes, cutting away the spent stems and pruning back the great arching branches of living wood so that I can see what is there, and what needs taking out. I stood in a cold mix of mud, melting snow, and rabbit poop from the wild and hungry bunnies who are actually eating blackberry bark to survive this long winter. I used my new pruning tools. I bent, stretched, flexed, and folded myself over in all sorts of odd reaches so as not to crush the emerging shoulders of rhubarb. It felt so good, though I am a bit out of shape, as I always am this time of year.
Luna spent her hours reacquainting herself with the smells of our gardens, and laying like a canine sphinx on the warm ground just to the south of the cold frame.
This morning I will finish clearing the blackberry bed; then I will make an inventory of tasks and needs for this year’s gardens. By the weekend I am planning to begin sewing cold-hardy seed in trays in the greenhouse. Even though I love having a plan, almost nothing ever goes to plan. Such is life.
For me, plans have always been more of a framework, or scaffold, in and on which to work. I am not terribly detail oriented, my eyes almost always take in the big picture. Process for its own sake bores me terribly; I stay away from anything using “Roberts Rules of Order,” which in my opinion, a very patriarchal, hierarchical, stifling, way of ensuring the status quo. Give me a circle of caring people looking to serve and heal their world any day of the week! I look for meaning more than “perfection” not because the world is that way, but because I am that way: imperfect, flawed, and often scared, yet attuned to beauty and compassion, finding courage and grace, and doing my best for the little bit of the world I can make a difference in.
Right now, as I write, the sun is streaming in the kitchen window, and beaming straight through to the dining room where it is shining golden on a pot of blooming daffodils. Such simple beauty makes me catch my breath. Last night, the sky was a gardener’s delight; all orange and purple-gray as the sun set to the southwest as it does at this time of year. It made me rise and run to the window to take this photo to share with all of you this morning. (Apologies for taking this through a window screen. I am now rolling my eyes at myself for that.)
I know the human world is in dire straits. I weep and rage almost daily over the behaviors of the aging-predators in charge of politics and armies right now. It is hard to bear up under the weight of their hate, and the suffering they bring to us all. What I know of them is that they are actually the weakest of human beings; aging, insecure, despots whose sins herd them towards an ever approaching abyss of shame and infamy. Perhaps after this time we will, again, say “never again,” and mean it.
That said, I also weep glad tears and rejoice almost daily when I learn that a twin-soul of mine is becoming a grandmother to a new little girl; when my own granddaughter receives a glowing report from her teachers; when my grandsons giggle in delight over fresh raspberries, and learn the family custom of clinking glasses (including their sippy cups) when we gather together for a meal; when a beloved is feeling better daily after a long bout with the flu; when friends reach out to me over the breaking of a clock; when the snow melts back and the soil emerges rested and replenished; and the sky glows in the colors of evening and of morning.
Like God Herself, I see, and I say it is good.
Courage my dears. See The Good. Be The Good. Love one another.
