As
we get into the mid-winter, my feelings begin to get low, the inspiration wanes.
Actually, it is interesting to note that we have a mid-winter and a mid-summer
but no mid-spring or mid-fall. Anyway, we must look to the dull, cold days for
beauty and hidden scenes. Even though I rarely encounter any wildlife on my
hikes in the winter, I do recall when I did at various places along the trails
in previous hikes in more seasonable weather. I find empty bird nests that I had
found in the spring when the birds were active and have now all flown south. I
see ponds and streams which had frogs singing and watersnakes gliding in but now
these creatures are buried in deep hibernation. A trail which was filled with
bloodroot and hepatica in the spring is now full of leaf litter and mud. Insects
are all spending time in pupa cases or buried under logs waiting out the cold.
And seeds from the flowers are absorbing the moisture and the cold as a
prerequisite to their germinating when the weather warms. Even all the bare
trees are not really bare but are full of buds that although small now, will
start to swell and burst a few months from now.
Underneath
all the leaf litter, beneath the fields of snow, in ponds of hard and frozen
ice, life is waiting, confident. Its activity is merely suspended. The
stillness, the seeming death of winter is mostly an illusion, the taking over of
the warm by the cold is only temporary. Like the tides ebb and flow, the sun
which has been slipping to the south for several months has reached the end and
stopped, the solstice, and now has started back to the north. From now on every
day we get another minute of sunlight, in a month it is a half hour more.
The
most durable harvest we can make in our lives is of fond memories. No bad
economy, no personal tragedy, no health issues can take them from us. They form
a mental bank account we can draw on during hard times. To appreciate the beauty
of the earth and the splendor of all life is a wonderful way to find some
wonderful memories.
As
we get into the mid-winter, my feelings begin to get low, the inspiration wanes.
Actually, it is interesting to note that we have a mid-winter and a mid-summer
but no mid-spring or mid-fall. Anyway, we must look to the dull, cold days for
beauty and hidden scenes. Even though I rarely encounter any wildlife on my
hikes in the winter, I do recall when I did at various places along the trails
in previous hikes in more seasonable weather. I find empty bird nests that I had
found in the spring when the birds were active and have now all flown south. I
see ponds and streams which had frogs singing and watersnakes gliding in but now
these creatures are buried in deep hibernation. A trail which was filled with
bloodroot and hepatica in the spring is now full of leaf litter and mud. Insects
are all spending time in pupa cases or buried under logs waiting out the cold.
And seeds from the flowers are absorbing the moisture and the cold as a
prerequisite to their germinating when the weather warms. Even all the bare
trees are not really bare but are full of buds that although small now, will
start to swell and burst a few months from now.
Underneath
all the leaf litter, beneath the fields of snow, in ponds of hard and frozen
ice, life is waiting, confident. Its activity is merely suspended. The
stillness, the seeming death of winter is mostly an illusion, the taking over of
the warm by the cold is only temporary. Like the tides ebb and flow, the sun
which has been slipping to the south for several months has reached the end and
stopped, the solstice, and now has started back to the north. From now on every
day we get another minute of sunlight, in a month it is a half hour more. 
The
most durable harvest we can make in our lives is of fond memories. No bad
economy, no personal tragedy, no health issues can take them from us. They form
a mental bank account we can draw on during hard times. To appreciate the beauty
of the earth and the splendor of all life is a wonderful way to find some
wonderful memories.