Woods Wanderer

Late May, when the world is all green and flowers are blooming, seems like a lousy time of year to immerse oneself in cosmic abstractions. Only a fool would venture deep into space and philosophical speculations about the nature of the universe while a balmy breeze is caressing the moist earth. I am guilty as charged.

A little over a month ago, I pulled out my cosmos manuscript, mothballed for eight years, and started revising it. I’m about three-fourths of the way through that process now, having worked like a madman on it early each morning as robins sing mindlessly outside my window. It’s a passion out of sync with the season, I must confess.

Though few people see it that way, I consider my mad scribblings about cosmology a form of nature writing. After all, the universe is the ultimate wilderness where the nature of things plays out on a grand scale. It seems silly to me to discuss the meaning and purpose of our lives here on this planet without considering the big picture. All the same, I look forward to being a little more down to earth in the near future getting all sweaty, dirty and bug-bitten again in deep woods. Just have to wrap up this draft first.

Tags: astronomy, cosmology, nature writing, wilderness

Leaves burst forth all around me as I meander along a path cutting through the woods. The forest floor is covered with trilliums, trout lilies, violets, and a host of other wildflowers. The songbirds are all singing – robins have been at it since the first glimmer of predawn light. I don’t know how long the warblers have been back, but I see them all around me now.  The natural world is coming alive and I am giddy with it.

What is this feeling overtaking me just now, like an inner glow that won’t quit?  Is this happiness?  Is it possible to be driven to joy by the mere outbreak of blue sky, balmy temps and fresh verdure? Of course it is. We are more creatures of the earth than we care to admit.  The robins are rejoicing.  Why shouldn’t we?

Matika lags behind me, backlogged in smells that she has found along the way. She is smiling. Some say that animals do not express emotion, but I know when my dog is happy. Quite often her moods are a reflection of mine. We both like to run wild for a day.

Springtime is so glorious that words cannot do it justice – especially now as everything brown suddenly turns green after such a long wait.  I grab a branch and pull an apple blossom close to my nose, inhaling deeply, intoxicated by its perfumed insinuation into the world. And to think the growing season is only beginning…  No wonder I’m so giddy.

Had I but one month to live, I would choose May, when there is nothing afoot but promise and potential, when the bee and the butterfly are just starting to go about their business, when the memory of a cold, dark winter is still fresh in my mind. And, as I sit on a knoll overlooking a drowned marsh where marigolds thrive, I can’t help but feel lucky to be alive and experiencing all this once again, one more time.

Indeed, it is too glorious for words.

Tags: songbirds, springtime, verdure, wild nature, wildflowers

Like most people here in the North Country, I plod along through a seemingly endless succession of grey, rainy days, waiting for that outburst of verdure called springtime. It is May, after all, and the brown month following winter is behind us.

Then it happens.

The sky breaks open and the dull landscape suddenly comes alive. I step outside for a better look at trees awash in fiery light. The sun has dropped below the rainclouds and is now hovering above the western horizon. Am I hallucinating?

A light rain dampens my skin but I don’t care.

And then, as if illumination wasn’t enough, a rainbow arcs across the sky. Despite any scientific explanation, it is truly a mystical phenomenon. The world we inhabit is too marvelous for words.

Wildness is everywhere.

Tags: light, mysticism, nature, rainbow, springtime, sunset, wildness