It's coming into late winter now, and the spring bird chorus has begun. Soon cardinals will call half an hour before dawn, and then come the song sparrows and the doves.
For so many years, I never used to pay attention to when the birds sang. I wasn't paying attention to the seasons either, and I took them for granted. And so the melodies of spring seemed random and out of context, and that discouraged me from following the changes in climate and the activities of the birds and insects.
I was disconnected from the world around me until finally I began to watch and listen and keep track of what was happening.
That new awareness broke my disconnection. I stopped thinking of things as random or out of place. I gradually found that everything has a place, and the more I paid attention, the more I felt that I had a place to. Once I connected just a few basic signs in nature, then I could begin to imagine my location and my time more clearly, and I could finally imagine my place within that habitat. And now, more and more, as I grow into that world, it's starting to feel like home.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will's Almanack. I'll be back again next week with more notes on nature and the seasons. In the meantime, listen for birds when you get up in the morning. Look for your place in which nothing is really out of place.
