Own Who You Are

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Some time ago, a spiritual director spoke those words to my husband..."Own who you are!"  But what to do when we don't remember very clearly, when forces beyond our control cause us to forget? These little plants don't look like much at first glance, perhaps. But for me, they were the needed gift. They were what led me back to myself this morning.

It is 39 degrees and windy outside. The landscape is still mostly brown. The March malaise is upon me, the long weariness of winter, frustration at the teasing days of warmth, only to be plunged back into freezing temperatures and muddy ground. The suffering of the globe feels particularly heavy these days...the emotional and physical turmoil of the nation, the farms and cattle and soil that have all been washed away, the loss of people's lives and livelihood, worldwide.

Suffice to say I am not at my best in March. I am tired of grackles and red-winged blackbirds dominating my feeders. I am tired of going out to look for blooming spring garden flowers that I know full well are barely up out of the ground. I long for the blue jay's squeaky, raspy cry to be replaced by the melodies of wood thrush and warblers. Sometimes all that is in me wants to cry out, "How long?"

March is the almost-but-not-quite season. It is the season I begin to forget who I am because, deep down, much of who I am involves the green and growing world and my participation in it. Never mind that there are trays of young lettuce, kale, cabbage, onions, chives, dill, and calendula growing upstairs under lights, or pots of orchids and foliage plants growing happily in my study.  My soul longs for the awakening of the earth and the plants that no one has planted. 

And that brings me to my walk out into the woods behind our house this morning and my rediscovery of the cutleaf toothwort populations carpeting the ground. Flowers that no one planted intentionally, flowers that are some of the very first to support early bees and butterflies, flowers that declare unequivocally that there is order and assurance built into the natural world, if we but wait for it. 

I know that I am connected to the One who mysteriously (and I imagine, joyously) splashed the toothwort across the wooded landscape. But sometimes I forget. This morning was a reminder that participation with the Holy sometimes means waiting and bearing with the longings of the world and, at the same time, there are moments of relief, moments that anchor us, not just in God, but in our deepest selves, as well. 

Soon the toothworts will all be blooming.

Waiting for Woodcocks

I heard them over the fields last week, their twittering, whistling calls punctuating their seemingly reckless descent towards earth from far above the tree line. In the gathering dusk they fly, and at dawn, males hoping to out-do all other rivals for their ladies' favor. I have heard them just a handful of times so far, as they do not like to fly in snow or rain or wind or extreme cold. But they are patient and they wait, as they do every year, knowing the winter will not last forever.

They fly as harbingers of early spring where wet woodlands meet wild fields dressed in the brown stubble of last year's grasses. As darkness settles in, as the cardinals cease their evening song and spring peepers begin theirs, these comical little birds with their large eyes and long beaks waddle from the woods into the fields, positioning themselves for the moment when, as the light fades, their longings launch them skyward in an wide arc above the earth, exuberant in the mating flights that only happen this time of year.

The woodcocks are surely more patient than I am. At least there is no indication that they are fretting at the grayness of the sky or the browns and tans of the landscape. They spend their solitary days probing the soft, wet earth for worms and attending to survival. And then, as the days slowly lengthen, their brains and bodies respond to the onset of mating hormones, and the males begin to fly in what seems such glad abandon, earthbound no longer, suddenly free from the confines of the largely terrestrial life they lead most of the year.

It has been cold again the last few days, too cold for the woodcock's song and sky dance but, soon enough, the temperatures will warm and I will again hear the nasal "peeent" from across the road, declaring that spring, though slow to arrive, will not tarry forever. It is me who needs to learn to wait patiently, not trying to hurry along that over which I have no control or becoming despondent that the winter has seemingly dragged on for so long. Being attentive to the signs I recognize, like the woodcocks flight or the spring peeper's tentative calls, enable me to open myself to what is, even in the midst of grumpy moments. And for this I am exceedingly grateful.

If you would like to know more about American Woodcocks, you can go to this link from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Woodcock/