We settle in to the morning.
Chores. We used to call them chores. Feeding the birds at the songbird feeder is really not much of a chore. The meadowlarks fill in silent parts of our summer soundtrack, and we give them seeds to nurture their song. Pretty good deal.
Our big old black walnut tree releases its burden later on in the year, and buckets get filled with tangy flavor. Now, the buckets hang in the grove on maple tree pegs. A few drips at a time. Maple trees and black walnut trees share wisdom with us — the wisdom of timelessness.
Time is like a shipping box that life comes in. We unpack our mornings and recycle the box into the wood fire that warms our evenings.
Truth is, we live in rhythms of nature. The sun climbs around the sky, and the moon partners with the stars. How we dance to those rhythms is up to us. They can be slow or fast. The hard-driving, heavy rock ‘n’ roll of a raucous summer rainstorm usually gives way to a slow dance with a wraparound high pressure cell.
When nature wakes up in the spring, you have to be ready to take in the aroma. The full frontal olfactory assaults of irises, peonies and roses come later, but the rhubarb reminds you early on that your taste buds better be ready, too. The earth itself loves to be turned over and is hungry for more seeds (though Monsanto gives it serious digestive problems). Breezes keep busy by introducing old pine friends to new deciduous ones.
Nature is loudest in the fall. Blazing maple reds, blinding birch yellows, and outrageous oak oranges scream out from the treetops in a deafening chorus to those of us who love to listen. The robust ripened life of autumn is our best chance to take nature into our being and digest its gifts of nurturing wisdom. The bounty of knowledge on just about everything we need to know to be good stewards of the planet is available to us in the fall. Nature lays it out pretty plain: We hear, dance to, watch, and love the rhythms we were all born into, and a happy coexistence is assured. If we don’t? Oh, well, better luck next time.
Nature dreams a lot in the winter, at least in Minnesota. Winds like to play in the snow and cover everything with blankets. Our part, as thin-skinned thought-filled animals, is to interpret those dreams and figure out what the future holds.
