Beneath the Surface

I find late winter, whether it be uncharacteristically warm or unbearably frigid, challenging. My internal store of reminders about the land’s need for cold and rest is about used up. My aesthetic appreciation for the naked woodland’s structure is wearing thin, as is my earlier delight in the myriad grey and brown birds of the season. Amid the drabness of titmice, chickadees, nuthatches, white-throats, song sparrows, mourning doves, and juncos, the astonishing color of blue-jays and male cardinals and bluebirds, seem a thoughtless mistake…or, perhaps, a bit of grace.

And so, in response to the challenge, out I go, a needy seeker longing for late winter’s assurance that spring will come, despite what my senses might initially lead me to believe. I am not disappointed for, as John Muir wrote, “In every walk with Nature, one receives far more than he seeks.” In my case, even with the ground frozen and high winds roaring overhead, I fill a page with observations, writing with chilled, almost immobile fingers, by the end of my excursion.

Working from just beyond the back door, and out into the yard I find plant shoots determinedly emerging, not far out of the ground it is true, but up and ready to spring into exuberant new growth once temperatures are reliably warm enough. Garden phlox, black and brown-eyed Susans, short-toothed mountain mint, smooth beardtongue and arrow-leaf aster are all sprouting an inch or two of green through the previous season’s still-in-place stalks. Short new blades of Pennsylvania sedge peak through last years dried ones, and moss grows abundantly in and through the grass. Tucked under last autumn’s dried leaves, the green foliage of spring blooming Jacob’s ladder, foam flower, golden ragwort, and creeping phlox promise the bright blues, pinks and yellows that I am so missing on this winter day.

Wildlife that remains through the winter is active as well, though finding its evidence sometimes requires more diligent searching. Beetles and borers tunnel just under the bark of dead or fallen trees, in turn drawing in a variety of woodpeckers, who are happy to find and feast upon them. Soft ridges and ripples undulating through the yard are the work of moles, invisibly expanding their feeding tunnels in search of worms and ground dwelling insects, active just below the frost line. Inconspicuous holes in dried mullein stalks are evidence of downy woodpeckers and chickadees, who probe for insect eggs and larvae as part of their winter diet. Goldfinches forage on spiny seed balls high up in sweet gum trees and ground-feeding juncos eat from sycamore seeds that have drifted softly, like snowflakes, down into the grass, often overlooked by human eyes. Here and there, I find small caches of corn, stashed in the grass, by whom, I do not know. Crows perhaps? Maybe squirrels? Possibly blue jays…Winter riddles.

It is at this feeling-empty time of year that I most need to push myself outside and into noticing. I don’t need to leave my yard if I don’t feel like it, for the busyness of winter life is everywhere. Searching is a bit like pilgrimage, a journey made to some sacred place, for it is in the seeking that I find evidences of Life, and of God, just beneath the surface.