In this week's episode, notes from Bill Felker's 40 years of observing what happens in nature.
Bill Felker: This is Bill Felker with Poor Will's Almanack for the sixth week of early spring.
March 5th was the first day of Lent, and on that date, practicing Christians began a six-and-a-half-week vigil for Easter. The Lenten landscape always takes me back to my childhood and to the gray, cold days of waiting for the season to be over. It brings on reminiscence that not only crosses the boundaries of years and snow and the space between winter and spring but also the boundaries of my spiritual or religious upbringing and my rebellion and my reconciliation.
When I was a boy growing up in Wisconsin, the land gave up very little before Easter. The winters were always long, and I was always restless and impatient for them to end. Snow still covered the ground most of the time in Lent, and there were few signs of the spring to come. And I remember the purple vestments of the priest on Sundays, the gloomy hymns of Holy Week, and all the darkness of prelude to the crucifixion.
In every place or situation, the holographic presence of association has the ability to transform the immediate earth around me into the earth of the past. It seems that these imprints are indelible, as they used to tell me in catechism class, and cognitive measures often fail to counteract the sense of distant seasons. Thinking doesn't help so much. But if I pay attention, I can re-fashion time with what's happening now.
The dandelions and snow crocus, and snowdrops in bloom. Open pussy willows, maples in flower, nettles tall enough for greens, robin, and cardinal song before dawn. Red-winged blackbirds whistling their mating territories in the swamp. The first cabbage butterflies hatching in the afternoon. The rising Christ of Spring.
I'll be back again next week with notes for the very first week of Middle Spring. In the meantime, remake the world. You have all the materials right around you.
Bill Felker contributes to newspapers nationwide, including the "Yellow Springs News." Bill resides in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Poor Will's Almanack is brought to you by Tree Care Inc., offering services in arboriculture throughout the region. Trees make life better.
