Messages From Carrie
Nature Has Perfect Timing
March 29th, 2009
It happened this week. The season shifted from winter to spring. Two days ago the ground and forest around my home was still asleep. I pulled on my hiking boots and took a squishy walk in the woods with my two dogs. The air was chill and the trees were still bare. I checked a few low limbs and bushes for green, but the new maroon colored buds were still hard and curled in upon themselves. The winter felt especially long this year, and it seemed to me that everyone I met was struggling with change, apprehension and uncertainty. I’d gone on that walk looking for a sign, longing for an outward expression of inward movement. Yes, I could sense that the perfect clock gears of nature were working and that spring was not far off, but the tangible proof of nature's inner motions were not yet to be seen. It is a powerful demonstration of faith to plant a bulb or seed in the autumn. It is act of steadfast hope to envision a green world in the middle of winter. I returned home with mud caked boots, two damp dogs and a gardener’s knowledge that all good growing things are aided by warmth and water, but still operate upon their own timeline. The next morning I stepped out my front door and spring had arrived. The air had changed and the light had shifted. I knocked the dried mud off my boots and whistled for my dogs. As I started up the steep hill I could smell the unmistakable scent of Indiana spring ground. Tender star shaped wildflowers had emerged everywhere. I carefully hunted along the path and found hairy fiddlehead shaped ferns and a dark green May apple plant with its leaves still wound around its thick stalk like a buttoned up umbrella. The wild rose brambles were dusted with tiny light green leaves. Everywhere the forest was unfolding, uncurling and emerging. It smelled like life. In a moment the world had gone from slumber to awareness, from gray to green, from incubation to a reborn version of itself. I had been paying attention and looking for spring, and so I experienced the moment when the light shifted and nothing was the same. It felt like a miracle and more than a little bit like a prayer.
We are living in uncertain times. And honestly, things may get worse before they get better. But, like in the forest this week, I sense that something has shifted. We are starting to turn toward the light, beginning to see what plain hasn’t worked. It isn’t easy to face a mistake. It’s hard to trust ourselves again when we’ve been so wrong. I admit to having as much pride as the next person. I can, and have, stubbornly clung to a worn out idea long past it's usefulness, just to save a little face. But, down deep I know there is no shame in having something to learn and then learning it. But, I also know how dangerous it can be to refuse to be educated by my experiences.
All things change and life unfolds. We move forward out of the darkness of the winter season and into the uncertain light of change. We make mistakes and then we learn something. We get lost and then we find our way. We believe in the power of things unseen and sense the presence of something nameless. In spite of the cold we can envision the green. Against all logic we hope, because hope is more a state of heart and mind than a state of the world. The seasons change. The light shifts. Nature has perfect timing.
Carrie