Written for Spring But Flowered in the Fall

There’s nothing like Spring to bring out a writer’s thoughts on rebirth, renewal, and transformation, so am I going to do that? Well, yeah. I’m a writer. This is what I do. I reflect on what is going on in the world around me. I contemplate. I start typing. I read what I write and let it tumble around in my head some more, and then come back to it and start shaping it. The piece doesn’t come out as a whole, perfect egg all at once.

Oh, but you saw what I did there, didn’t you? You saw the reference to an egg. I know, I know. It really is predictable. Sigh. Okay, so now I’m going to have to look up the definition and derivation of the word “predict,” because that’s another thing I do. I look at a word and I realize that I only half-way know it. The dictionary tells me that “predict” is from the Latin “made known beforehand” by combining the root words“beforehand” and “say”. Hmmm. Perhaps that’s why Easter, Passover, Neo-Pagan and other rites have predictable homilies and poems written to celebrate them. To be in the midst of Spring is to try to predict what sort of future growth is coming, based on the past two seasons of winter and fall. Within those predictions is a message of faith that even the Earth is subject to the effects of more powerful forces. If the Earth cannot remain static and immovable, then neither can its smaller inhabitants.

So, here’s a prediction story that comes to mind. You may remember The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was one of my favorites of the series. Why not These Happy Golden Years or By the Shores of Silver Lake? Because I tend to like survival stories and how other smaller survival stories are usually tucked inside them. So one other survival story tucked inside The Long Winter comes along when Pa arrives home from the general store and tells the family what he overheard there. A Native American had come into town to warn the settlers that the coming winter was going to be severe. How did he know that? Because the beavers and muskrats were building their dams thicker than ever. They had measured them to be seven inches thick, and so they natives predicted that the winter would last for seven months. Which it did. So, how did the animals know? That part is not revealed. Darn.

All I know about Spring and Transformations is that they happen. Even if the dam is seven inches thick, and the winter is seven months long, that blanket of snow will begin to melt and water the soil which enfolds the seeds. Or, if you live in the desert, the straightforward freefall of the winter rains will end, the clouds will no longer hover along the mountain ranges, and the poppies will carpet themselves around the cactus and scrub.

But transformations, revolutions, moultings, and sheddings are all very delicate. Sometimes, the new growth comes early, the seeds from the new growth is driven back underground, and the flowering is brief. Also, the process of transformation can be downright scary and revolting. If you’ve ever seen a snakeskin stretched out across a road, with the released snake no where in sight, it’s like coming across some sort of alien gravesite. And the process of watching a caterpillar become a moth is squeamish, in spite of its fascinating beauty and hope. When a crab is moulting, the whole operation looks perilous and sometimes the crab doesn’t survive it. Well, that does’t sound very spring-y. Most of the time, I can only report. I can’t change all of the changing, no matter how much I wish that “writing down” would equal “bringing about”.

A Luna Moth (found on lancasteronline.com). It spends one week of its lifecycle as an adult. 

A demonstration of much energy being spent for something ephemeral

However, celebrating Spring means to be dancing on the grave of Death, heralding and predicting and making the way safe for Summer. To prepare for Winter during the fall is to try to anticipate another round of hardship and its possible severity. The older we get, and the number of times we have faced death in nature, death in our lives, the more we can feel like Death always has the upper hand, because it’s inevitable. It may seem not only certain, but steadfast, in a comforting way. And yet, I think, that while Death may contain a kind of mercy, I doubt that this mercy is painless.

It is merciful that the snake can shed his old skin, it is merciful that the moth is no longer trapped inside it’s former creeping caterpillar confines. It is merciful to not force something to endure a way of existing that is painful and bewildering. But, I doubt that death is any easier than birth. I have attended birthings, as well as having been in the throes with my children, and I believe it’s probably best that none of us can remember it. But, it's also possible to observe that where there was once a hidden life that then emerged and became a visible life, it seems that death might be the opposite state— a visible life that submerges into an invisible one. 

This idea is coming from a desire on my part to have things come into balance. I like it when pairs of opposites find union, or reunion, but I am also aware that what comes before that moment of balance is messy, exhausting for all involved, and precarious. Even if the body is at repose in death, it feels, at some intuitive level, that the self is dispersing, but is not destroyed. The end of the body is not the extinction of the being. It’s possible that a permeation occurs. I’m taking that belief from a limited perception of the natural world. I’m taking that belief, because humans are often preoccupied with the questions of self and death, and whether or not we have a soul that lives on. Entire cultures, empires, eras have been defined by the answers proposed to those questions. It doesn’t appear that other natural beings evolve themselves from these questions. They stick to survival and an urge to compete or cooperate in order to perpetuate the species. They form bonds and police and groom each other. They emigrate from barren territories, raid prosperous fields, and mourn the loss of their family members, but they don’t seem to engage in philosophical debate.

They may fear that they have lost their family member or clan leader, but they don’t form groups based on questions about what happened to that life. Then again, if what is true is based only on what is observable, then why bother to wonder about any of it at all. If it weren’t for this natural wonder, then would we strive to refine our instruments of observation, so that we can know more and wonder less? And just like a small survival story tucked inside a larger one, our knowing will always contain the seeds of the next wonderment. You see what I did there again. I said "seeds" while talking about Spring. Please forgive my use of the worn out symbols that surround us somewhat relentlessly with their seasonal repetition. Apparently, we have yet to come up with better ones that are as lasting.

No matter which season you find yourself in-- because each season contains the beginnings of the next one-- I hope you are able to experience the natural world around you on both the level of the immediate kingdom at hand, and also at a remove, on the level of the symbolic. One way or another, they will emerge and submerge in relation to where you are tucked inside it.