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We all awakened with the cadence of nature. The season of renewal drove us into the woods. There, the signs of time's immemorial cycle screamed--the buds of trees, and occasional bee, the burst of the earliest of spring's most prolific greens; and the greens merged and mixed with a multiple palette of violets, whites, blues, an occasional red or yellow, and we were suddenly alive.
Our first forays, tho perhaps unfruitful, were fulfilling none the less. Eyes adjusted to the seasonal hues. Our senses--so sluggish from winter's long captivity--were suddenly freed (as if the Bastille itself were breached). We ventured tentatively at first, and soon the torrent of it all converged in that long-awaited magic moment when the eye sights the very first morel of the season! Then more, and more, more....all under one lone, early-producing elm. For me it was April 19, northern Washington County--game on! The first anyone local had heard of. Finally, a victory.
Once again, like nearly countless seasons past, that instant is emblazoned in my psyche and becomes an enduring part of my becoming (we are all always becoming). At some point, such seasonal experience may seem to exceed one's innate nature and I sometimes wonder if my distant ancestors, millennia removed, have somehow bestowed upon me the "gift" of such acute communion with the woods, especially the annual spring renewal. I live for this. Those who can relate understand "that moment" when it all converges in one's sight--"there's one!" and a smile seems to fill one's soul. It is a tragedy that this feeling is confined by the bounds of one's lifetime, but all the more reason to feel the magic of the moment in the marrow of one's bones.
And so another memorable season came and went. In every way conceivable I feel richer for having immersed myself in this annual rite--this reunion and exercise of earth faith-- and become quite the "wilder" for it. Having spent 17 days in the woods, I'm changed. I desperately crave Thoreau and <em>Walden.</em>
Alas, having returned a few weeks ago--involuntarily--to the path of civilization, arms scarred from the terrific fortress of multiflora, buckthorn, and assorted brambles and briars, I'm uncertain where this path will take me. However, I do realize that I am not the person I was a month and a half ago. I'm struggling to get back. Perhaps I will make it...
I suspect I may, as I've already begun the countdown to my prediction for my first finds of 2016: 318 days and counting.
We're going in the right direction.
To all the friends I've made here, high-fives. May the passage of the seasons and return of another spring be sweet and swift, filled with all the joys and wonders and thrills that a life lived in close concert--<em>symphony</em>--with nature guarantees.
Season's end thoughts, my friends?
Our first forays, tho perhaps unfruitful, were fulfilling none the less. Eyes adjusted to the seasonal hues. Our senses--so sluggish from winter's long captivity--were suddenly freed (as if the Bastille itself were breached). We ventured tentatively at first, and soon the torrent of it all converged in that long-awaited magic moment when the eye sights the very first morel of the season! Then more, and more, more....all under one lone, early-producing elm. For me it was April 19, northern Washington County--game on! The first anyone local had heard of. Finally, a victory.
Once again, like nearly countless seasons past, that instant is emblazoned in my psyche and becomes an enduring part of my becoming (we are all always becoming). At some point, such seasonal experience may seem to exceed one's innate nature and I sometimes wonder if my distant ancestors, millennia removed, have somehow bestowed upon me the "gift" of such acute communion with the woods, especially the annual spring renewal. I live for this. Those who can relate understand "that moment" when it all converges in one's sight--"there's one!" and a smile seems to fill one's soul. It is a tragedy that this feeling is confined by the bounds of one's lifetime, but all the more reason to feel the magic of the moment in the marrow of one's bones.
And so another memorable season came and went. In every way conceivable I feel richer for having immersed myself in this annual rite--this reunion and exercise of earth faith-- and become quite the "wilder" for it. Having spent 17 days in the woods, I'm changed. I desperately crave Thoreau and <em>Walden.</em>
Alas, having returned a few weeks ago--involuntarily--to the path of civilization, arms scarred from the terrific fortress of multiflora, buckthorn, and assorted brambles and briars, I'm uncertain where this path will take me. However, I do realize that I am not the person I was a month and a half ago. I'm struggling to get back. Perhaps I will make it...
I suspect I may, as I've already begun the countdown to my prediction for my first finds of 2016: 318 days and counting.
We're going in the right direction.
To all the friends I've made here, high-fives. May the passage of the seasons and return of another spring be sweet and swift, filled with all the joys and wonders and thrills that a life lived in close concert--<em>symphony</em>--with nature guarantees.
Season's end thoughts, my friends?
