Date:
19 March 2017
Time:
4:30pm
Temperature:
38°F
I sit beside my tree and just take everything in. So
much—and yet so little—has happened in the past few weeks. The temperature has risen
and fallen numerous times. It rained, sleeted, snowed. Spring peepers made
their first appearance but disappeared again. Buds have continued to lengthen, continued
to fatten. Deer, turkeys, and even robins have wondered into the area during
the warmer days but hide again as the temperatures drop.
They say that March could start out nasty and end calmly—in like a lion and out like a lamb. Likewise,
March could start out calmly and end nastily—in like a lamb and out like a lion. However, with all of the back
and forth, all of the two and fro, it is hard to tell how we started March out,
making it near impossible to tell how this will all end.
Tomorrow is the Spring Equinox. It signals the
arrival of a new seasons, of spring. Again, we’re being given change. The
biggest change: spring brings new life. Daffodils, daisies, dandelions. Fawns,
chicks, babes. It also brings rain, mud, floods, but without these “bad” things,
we wouldn’t get the “good” things.
The Spring Equinox is also when the sun crosses the celestial
equator—the imaginary line in the sky above Earth’s equator—from the south to the
north. Similarly, this is also when the sun is directly above the equator.
Unlike the Summer Solstice—the longest day of the year—the Spring Equinox is one
of the two days of the year—along with the Autumn Equinox—where the day is
nearly as long as night.
Unlike an eclipse, you cannot see the Spring Equinox.
There is no flash, no bang. The start of spring is something we celebrate but
cannot see, cannot feel. We know the signs, we know the astronomy, but we rely
on faith and science to show us this change.
We are in a balance of new and old. We are leaving
winter, leaving death and destruction. But we have not arrived at summer, at
full life and abundance. We’re stuck in the middle, in a central point between
life and death. Yes, things are growing and breathing, but at any moment, that
can be lost. Frost can kill plants overnight, and predators can overpower newborn
animals with ease. Maybe the constant teetering between rain and snow, between
winter and summer, is starting to make sense now.
Maybe we can’t rely on the old proverb in like a lion/lamb and out like a lamb/lion.
Maybe there’s been too much change—or maybe there’s been too little change.
Either way, here’s to April showers bring May flowers.
Hi Abby- I have always been intrigued by the March "Lion/Lamb" thing and appreciate that you brought this and other ideas of duality to this entry. This time of year always feels like we are in the process of crossing a threshold--without a bang, as you say--and you captured that feeling of excitement and danger. Happy Vernal Equinox to you:)
ReplyDeleteThe arrival of spring seems to be on everyone's minds this week -- including mine. I appreciate how you brought out the weird in-between this time of year is, a bit of winter, a hint of summer, inconsistent. But it's also a necessary period of change and reconstruction. I've been thinking about our changing climate, too, and how we seem to be in a weird nether-space, uncertain of what the future holds.
ReplyDeleteI think your ending to this post was well done. I like your questioning of if we can trust the proverb because the weather this year is definitely different than some years past. I think your idea of this time or year being stuck in the middle somewhere between life and death was interesting and is exactly how some people have been feeling about plants budding too early in the warmer days.
ReplyDeleteYour reflections here embody exactly the sense of that curious moment of being suspended between seasons. I appreciate that there is a trusting hopefulness to this entry.
ReplyDelete