IS IT TIME ???

Hello 2/12/12. Today here in Bethel is a frigid one...a real breath of ole man winter. The wind makes my nose run and when I breathe in deep, I can feel a cold burn in my lungs and even Sadie is ready to come inside after chasing her tennis balls for a bit. The snow is crunchy and everywhere we walk regularly has become slick with ice. This is a strange winter, and strange is unusual, unfamiliar, unpredictable...surprising. A week ago, there were 35 robins in my crab apple taking turns on the fruitfest with a large flock of Cedar Waxwings. Shocking on a groundhog day in early February. My trips to Mass. create an unusal pattern to my life and as I journey north to south...then south to north twice a month, I feel a little like The Little Engine That Could...and as I repeat my mantra of "I think I can...I think I can...I think I can" when I feel like I'm running out of steam, I find there is real power in self talk. Expressing fear of not being able to handle it seems to affirm my inability to handle it...where the more positive tune on my dial, leaves me feeling surprised at how much I can accomplish. So I keep putting along as winter confounds and I am blessed with extraordinary signs of early spring to reassure and promise the icy slippery slope that I'm on will eventually become solid ground under my feet again. Massachusetts has already tapped for Maple syrup and these big fat buds are already set to bursting while here the windows are still decorated in frost patterns and the air is biting. I feel like I'm journeying between two worlds as I make my way between seasons. The ravens and fox, owls and coyote are all restless with the deep stirrings of spring. As the north wind bites my nose today...I am filled with a breath of warm southern air during a thermal inversion on the chairlift and there is the promise. I imagine my Mom is journeying between worlds as well...though I expect her journey shuttles her between here and the great beyond. She is building a bridge just as I am...a bridge between two worlds.

This visit was a bit different because my sister was scheduled for her mastectomy on monday and the atmosphere of the house was a generalized concern for her procedure and affirmations for the outcome. Mom was aware of the issues but she frequently visits other times. She woke up Tuesday morning saying she had to go see Bethy at the hospital. She knew she might be needed by one of her daughters but in her early morning post dream state, she was visiting my sister Beth who passed away in 1985. The brain is a remarkable thing and one is left wondering about the validity of parallell universes. Perhaps the doorway to those realms is in our own brains.

Any way...we are 2 women travelling between 2 worlds in our own unique way...even as we make the journey from winter to spring. There is no real "RIGHT" time for spring to start. We humans are so enamored of our timepieces...our clocks...our 24 hours, our time zones...all created by the brain of the human. Real time is told by processes. Real time is the department of Mother Nature. She is the authority on timing and she doesn't really give a hoot if we are syncronized with her rhythms or not. But I can assure you...the less one structures ones life around human made time and embraces the rhythms of the changing Earth, the more harmoniously one can fulfill ones plans. Spring is supposed to start on March 21. The Celts celebrated the deep stirrings of spring on February 2 with their holiday known as Imbolc. They seemed to understand that even though the cold and snow met the eye...there were mating ravens and owls, arriving flocks of birds and life starting to move deep beneath the surfaces of things...all perceivable by the heart. I'm feeling the quickening of approaching birth. This year I am more in tune with my wild mother. We had a really early spring arrive in 2009 and Stephen and I were so conditioned by our experience with past time that when the sap started to run in mid-february, we ignored it and stayed in denial because we don't tap before the first weekend in March. Holding on to human time...we missed the first half of the maple sap run altogether. Thanks to taking care of my personal Mom, I am more tuned in to my wild Mom and I am listening to the secret signs of the birds and animals. Spring is coming. And if we want to catch the sweetness of life and harvest the gifts of the trees, we are better off hearing from the birds...what time is it? Time for the Robins to start singing in the spring.