Reflections from the Swamp
Dear Reader
Welcome to springtime.
The birds are busy building nests or feeding the newly hatched, and the insects emerge from the swamp to fill their part in the web of life. There is an intensity to life that is not equal to any other season. We have seen this rush to survive before while so many plants and animals are experiencing life for the first time. We have a long lineage that goes back to the first cells. Yes, even the trees are part of our family tree. We again enter the springtime of our lives.
Take the time to fully become part of spring.
My bride asked me to bring a frayed wicker chair to the road on garbage day. I stopped halfway down the driveway where Coady Creek passes through the culverts on its way to the Mississippi. I sat in the comfortable wicker chair and watched the creek slowly meander through the culvert.
A calm breeze filled with descending dandelion parachutes dropped the white seedlings like snow all around me. Some fell on the driveway and grass while thousands silently landed on the pond. The magic of the moment is difficult to put into words. Suddenly, time disappeared, and I entered a mystical world of yet-unborn swirling dandelions finding their place.
The truth of the experience was that it felt like this had never happened before. The white umbrellas, moved by the lazy current, gathered in long lines in the water and started their journey to the culvert. They became herds of caribou, slowly grazing the tundra, drawn together by the pull of gravity to move together downstream. They are the endless stream of wildebeests moving across the Serengeti plains. I saw them as flocks of migratory birds carried by wind following the inner calling to fly to warmer climes.
The gentle breeze ended, and the air cleared of dandelion fluff. The seedlings on the pond continued to move in formation downstream until the surface water was a mirror of the pillowy clouded sky. The still surface was punctuated by isolated concentric circles caused by minnows breaking the surface. Someone wandering by an hour later would have missed the whole mystical, transient event.
So often, experiences in nature come on their own without being anticipated. These timeless gifts are frequently witnessed by only one individual who lacks words to express the mystery.
These revelations are unifying, making the viewer a part of nature and changing them into an integral fragment of the surrounding life.
The wicker chair stands next to the pond, waiting for you. Springtime is calling.
Young ones will have dreams, while older ones will have visions.
