Learn to be silent and recognize yourself as a humble part of Nature & you may be given gifts. Today through an unseasonable spring, and after a dry but safe winter, struggling white blossoms strain their petals to appear on cherry and Goji bushes. Though not as many as in years past.
Alone? Mastermind? Or are we an integral part of this intricately woven Pattern of Life?
Feel the gift and strength of being part, however small yet essential, of such a glorious Plan and relinquish the fantasy of control to mutual respect, care, stewardship, awe & admiration for all creation connected to you.
The past two days of this 2023 Triduum has been shrouded in late afternoon cloud cover that stares back at Earth and almost speaks.
When we eliminate the noise of the usual routines and choose to observe, think, ponder and pray in silence with nothing but the sounds of Nature, messages emerge from all that surrounds us. And there is nothing blocking that communicative process – no distractions, no divided attention, no interference.
This late afternoon Good Friday sky hides a far-away sun with darkening clouds, barely visible as night nears.
While today’s Holy Saturday sun radiates brighter and more hopeful, still with dark streaks menacing the cloud cover as sunset approaches. Both photos were taken about two hours before actual sunset. Both speak of these days of uncertainty and encourage us to believe in something more than what we can see — but what we feel in our hearts & souls.
It has often been printed that purple exists rarely in nature. Yet, on this 4th of April 2023 in bright sunshine promising an easing into spring, I find three examples in a tiny, suburban backyard.
This hue is associated with royalty, spirituality, and wisdom, at the intersection of blue and red, in a variety of degrees. Finding the balance in the shades of red and blue shows just how emotional life can be. In today’s blossoms alone, each flower face reminds me of a childhood in your presence, in your care and growth. So today’s wishes include a celebration of life, yours and that same gift you also gave me.
A warm Saturday yesterday filled with showers and threatening winds coasted in Sunday’s 43 degree cold gusts and dazzling sunshine. The low temperatures will register in the high 20s, chilling the blooms that smile and struggle to absorb the sun’s warm guarantees.
Despite cracking bones and arthritic knees unhappy in such temperatures, I survey the garden emerging from its winter lethargy with chores to be done. And in this biting, unrelenting winter mirage of spring, a double curly daffodil whispers its greetings.
This afternoon was a marvelous spring day with a few soft clouds in the sky. A slight breeze whispered by every now and then, but my warm, lined jacket proved just enough to resist any chill. Possibly, this time, Nature was kind or my extreme caution outsmarted Her limits of today’s walk in sunshine.
As I walked the neighborhood to complete almost 2 miles, I arrived at a usual corner and spotted the pre-flowering firethorn bush with something inside. Noticing the napkin-wrapped soda can jammed between branches, I imagined the cavalier culprit whose disregard showed a level of mindless action. Across the street, of course, is a park with a few metal bins to dispose of trash. But then, one would have to walk across the street! These moves take place every day by those lost and impulsive who have yet to see and understand.
And I was reminded by a friend, that many of the community parks have their trash bins removed which further complicates the issue – there are enough excuses and blame to easily cover government and its citizenry!
They bloom together, united in strength to herald the spring, without fear. For several weeks, they have been inching their way through tired soil and remnants of winter’s follies.
Announcements of spring rise from their emboldened trumpets, yet their lifeline warns other flora and fauna to distance, for their energy near promises deception, as fatal as narcissus in our midst.
It’s the penultimate Thursday in this March. The temperature will drop before sunset. Yet, the sun, we believe, still peeks behind unsettled patchworks of gray sky shadows. My chilled bones stubborn, refuse to warm.
I’ve sprinkled some sunflower seeds on the flat rock settled in the front flower bed close to the feeder for the forgotten finches and sparrows—just to will goodness by actualizing one, small, constructive act.
I’m rewarded by a tiny, tawny and tortilla hued house sparrow who visits, tilting her head, wondering. With apparent kindness, she appreciates this human attention. We are mutually aware.
She rests in my gaze and I in hers. My smile broadens and her stillness fills the unpredictable March air.
This moment of peace transcends the familiar calls for more weapons, more destruction, more killing and desecration of any standing blade of grass.
TV networks, unorthodox or traditional, clash among themselves with their repetitive stories, words, imagery to target viewership numbers and profit margins, excite, incite or desensitize.
Audiences gather, as in times of Caesar, for their daily dose of panem et circensem while neighbors and strangers alike struggle to survive in an ominous web of uncertainty, alienation, and an apparent implant of the business-as-usual mantra, despite everything contrary.
Camps of the illegally blind have been forged, caught between lost myopic visions from East to West, wrapping themselves in feigned valor, warped, clinging unsteady, by stars and stripes.
My breath returns to the dusk air, in little puffs of white steam as the sparrow turns, her beak clinging to a sunflower seed in her blessed flight, as a glow of warmth grows through my bones.
While gusts of wind pressure moments of calm after this mild winter’s major mid-March Nor’Easter, my eyes fix on the tangerine flames that seek to warm me from the fire. This silence brings me back to the 70s as my bookmark rests on the last few chapters of the book I’m reading. This memoir, “I Refuse to Kill” fascinates me with suggested solutions for my own past of mystery and questions unanswered.
“Feeling fire and rain,,tonight snow. Friendless, lonely times never realizing any yesterday may have been the last.” Lines of that Sweet Baby James Taylor song drift through my mind as I prepare for this week’s funeral Mass. I will sit in the shadows, in the final church pews, present to pay the respect I’ve always maintained. They may not recognize me, or even know I’m there. Yet, I understand. Life gets in the way and everyone gets…”busy.” And people forget.
But in the stillness of warm rooms on cold March nights, I feel the presence of the many who seek to remember and permit hearts to recognize the Love that, once it is felt, can never be lost.
Since the shift in reality exacting by the turn of the decade,
After opportunists collude to sabotage systems with malfunctions and hollow promises,
After 20 years of unexpected tragedy raise healing spaces between lingering clouds of memory,
Today, at this precise time of noon, I stop my walk to probe the skies, to feel echoes of a past that hold all dear and earn the resonance–the moment of unity–in the blossoms of the crocus that welcome my gaze.
A glance at the kitchen ‘Frate Indovino’ Italian calendar and my realization dawns that we are in the midst of Carnevale 2023. A portion of the past rises inside my thoughts, still becoming part of this lifetime lived to understand. One of the marvels of where anyone spends time is the similarities with slight differences and the lessons to be gained. A simple dough of flour, scant sugar, an egg, melted butter, a splash of wine or rum becomes a pre-Lenten treat, ‘made essentially the same’ with variations depending on its region yet, named differently. In Milan, they are chiacchiere; in Tuscany, cenci; in Rome, frappe; in Veneto, crostoli; in Piemonte & Liguria, bugie. In some American /Italian-American circles, they are bow-ties. Through stories of varieties in cultures and those simple lessons, we are all capable of sitting together, with a cup of tea, coffee or glass of Vin Santo and share stories, life. What has become a distant possibility, in a purposeful reality is ‘essentially’ simple.
Round 1 of Dolci di Carnevale – in Piedmont (Piemonte) called “bugie” or lies.
