Again, the dazzling Question

     We're poised to turn the calendar from March to April, now eleven days past the Vernal Equinox. Sap rising is bringing on the soft red blush of maple bud, a gauzy veil over-laying the wooded hillsides, soon to be accented by pastels of gold and sea-green. Robins, song sparrows, red-wings, grackles, starlings, and phoebes are newly-returned. This morning a cheery mob of goldfinches swarmed the two feeders, good-naturedly jostling each other for the sun-flower seeds. Their subdued winter colors are rapidly brightening to yellow-gold, a transformation that never fails to amaze. Soon the fiddlehead ferns will be poking tightly-curled heads up through the leaves. Just beyond the barn there's a fairy-circle of them that I'm eager to step inside of once more and feel the tingly buzz standing quietly and happily among them. A few days ago a pair of wood ducks visited Hemlock Pond here near the house, perhaps sizing up the prospects of a nesting opportunity. The two previous Springs they've enchanted me in the same way, gliding about the dark water, the male resplendent in his handsome white- and black-outlined harlequin plumage of cinnamon, gold, and dark-green. Maybe this year they'll settle in! Though today's breezy 60s make me want to find my sandals, three to five inches of snow are forecast for a few days from now. Nothing to be discouraged about. After all, many will tell you that the Spring Peepers (who I heard for the first time last week!) need to "freeze in" three times before full Spring can arrive. And when it melts it will set the streams and waterfalls to singing all the more, songs that have echoed in these hills since long before any house stood here. It is the perennial do-si-do of Winter giving way to Spring.

I am a much-blessed resident of these seven acres, as enchanted with this third Vernal shift as I was three years ago. It was that first Spring when I discovered Mary Oliver's poem about this tender time, these emergent wonders. It's become part of my Spring ritual to read it aloud, savoring its delights. Her black bear enthralls me once more, and when I come to these lines, I ponder them anew.... 
"There is only one question: how to love this world."
The answer is often elusive though I've felt I've come close to it at time or two. What I can say for sure though is that it awaits me through the open back door.

Spring

Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring

down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring

I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue

like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:

how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
the silence 
of the trees.
Whatever else

my life is    

with its poems
and its music
and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness 
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her --
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.

~ Mary Oliver ~

First-Responders for Gaia

I'm re-blogging this post having found it compelling reading.
This may be something that happens more often here
on Notes of an Earth Pilgrim.

Suzanne Lie: The Children of Mother Earth – We Came for Gaia.

August 31, 2015 By Andrew Eardley

Things are really “hot”. All you can do now is hang on and wait. Of course, it
is an active wait, as we are in constant contact with the higher
frequencies of Light that seem to accelerate more and more each day.

Then suddenly, it appears that that the connection stops – then it is
on – then it is off. This experience is similar to a short circuit, or a
lamp that is not totally plugged into the wall.

Yes, that is it. We have not yet totally plugged our consciousness
into the Multidimensional power source for our Earth vessel. This “power
source” is our Multidimensional Consciousness, our higher dimensional
SELF, and the core of our planetary Mother, Gaia.

As we “plugin” to our Multidimensional power, we discover that we can see  
through the illusions of 3D. In fact, that which was so important to our
physical body reality is being transmuted into that which is
increasingly important in our Light Body reality.

Second Harvest - Autumn 2015

It's been a long pause between posts, though I've composed several in my mind since the Spring. Ah, yes, Life is what happens while you're busy making plans. But I make no serious complaint since it was such a delight-full time in between, this second Summer as the Resident Human of Lightspring Glen.

As much as I enjoyed the years of what I call my gypsy-life, how I love that these seven acres of woods and water have become my home-base. Two years ago on a golden September day, I set foot on this land for the first time. As earlier posts have mentioned, the Official Greeter was a marvelous owl who'd chosen a day-time perch at the top of the waterfall! After that encounter, I needed very little convincing that I'd found my home....or more accurately as I soon understood, my new home had found me.

This Summer now almost past I'm calling "The Summer of the Owls & the Hummingbirds" as they were both quite constant companions. A family of Barred owls nested somewhere up on one of the hills nearby and once the young ones fledged, I was frequently treated to their family conversations as they kept tabs on each another during the night. The fledglings in a decidedly treble voice called, "Who cooks for you?" - as the human interpretation has it - one or both of the parents quickly calling back in their baritone, "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?" How I loved waking up and hearing their voices echoing through the darkness. I'd often lie awake listening until they grew silent again. Another of their charms for me is that Barred owls can be heard now and then during the day. Beyond the special encounter of my first visit, I've not seen another one since. But I'm sure it's only a matter of time and patience. Note of that will be made in a future Earth Pilgrim post, I can assure you!

The hummingbirds were much about, especially as I invested in a feeder this year. I found one for just $3.00 at Dollar General. The clerk said he was having trouble keeping them in stock and it delighted me to think how many people around here were entertaining these feathered sprites. Last summer I frequently spotted them enjoying the red blossoms of the Kentucky Wonder pole beans in the veggie patch at the end of the yard. (photo below). Once I'd hung my $3 feeder on the porch, my first male hummer appeared within twenty minutes, his throat flashing its iridescent red. Ultimately I counted at least four adults, two pairs that routinely sparred with one another for prime sipping. They'd chatter at each other and often zoom in to spook whoever was trying to have a quiet drink. These aerial sparring matches were greatly entertaining, though I sometimes scolded them, "There's plenty for all of you...share!"  Mostly they were quite tolerant of my presence, and would occasionally perch just a few feet away on one of the house plants that live out on the porch for the warm months. Pure enchantment. It was like having winged fairies for company and I never grew tired of their appearances.

It's a much quieter place since their departure only a week or so ago for their winter range. The small golden bees who also competed for the sugar water had the feeder all to themselves for a few days before I noticed the hummers' absence and took it in. How it is these tiny birds find their way South just amazes me, another of the countless miracles of this Good Green Earth. The Barred owls aren't going anywhere, though I'm sure they spread out a bit from the nesting territory. Like me, they call this place Home. Accepting the lengthening hours of darkness is a bit easier knowing their familiar calls will continue to drift my way from the woods.

As I was typing the first part of this post, the window open to the warm morning, an owl called somewhere on the hillside across the road, just a brief day-time comment, but duly noted and enjoyed by this fortunate Human-in-Residence here at Lightspring Glen.

Spring Voices at Lightspring Glen

The Fairy Falls at Emerald Pond

This Earth Pilgrim now finds herself in mid-May, the year's Wheel spinning joyfully forward. It's my first Spring here in Lightspring Glen, and oh! what a Season of delightful (delight-full) discoveries everywhere in this wondrous new heart-home.  

With Spring now in earnest unfolding, my woods-walks got me thinking: in addition to the voices of all the wonderful birds, Spring certainly also "sings in greens". Every year at this time of leaf-bud and tender new leaves, the overnight greening of fields and lawns, I go around for days stunned by the infinite shades of green, each one luminous in the sun's strengthening light. It's an amazingly vast palette that delights my eyes and fills my senses. And though I often try, my best writing efforts prove inadequate to offer a fitting description of this visual feast.

It's a water-rich landscape here with the three ponds and marshy areas. So as warmer weather approached, I'd been eagerly anticipating a marvelous chorus of Spring peepers. Possibly my favorite sound of Spring. Oh my, yes! Mild nights in the last weeks have offered fabulous Peeper-concerts often with accompanying deeper voices of their newly-awakened frog cousins. The warmer the night, the more harmonies added. There was a particularly raucous set of frog-singers right here in Hemlock Pond by the house. Then one afternoon, a Great Blue heron happened by along with a kingfisher. Together they made considerable in-roads in that frog population. I was a reluctant witness to their teamwork and tried to bear in mind that Nature has her ways, a Mystery I had to accept :::sigh::: 

Once the snow-melt ended the waterfall's song had become fairly muted. But last week's heavy rain brought it roaring back. So for several days the air was filled with the cascading rush of water tumbling down the falls and down through the Glen. Only the crows' calls could be heard over the silvery din.

And bird song, not counting the crows (!) ...where to begin? Newly returned to the countryside, as with the Peepers, I was eagerly anticipating the Spring calls of returning birds, those that stay and migrants who pass through lingering only a short time. But it was a chilly April and so a slowed arrival for many. At last temps climbed and literally overnight the woods filled with their colors and song! One morning I was wowed by a flock of migrating warblers darting about in the hemlocks like so much confetti, bright yellows, blues, blacks, whites, rusty browns. They've moved on to their summer habitats in the Adirondacks and further north. And while I could go on and on about the birds that are settling in here, for this post a list will suffice: robins, flickers, Song- and chipping sparrows, a pair of hummingbirds, catbirds, orioles, tree swallows, grackles, an amazing number of ovenbirds, and in the deeper woods the shy, enchanting Woods and Hermit thrushes. The "locals" have made room, the chickadees, juncos, Mourning doves, Blue jays, nuthatches, and wood peckers. Birder that I am, I am easily distracted from my "other" work hearing a new voice and rush to catch a glimpse. And just when I thought I couldn't be more thrilled, one morning last week there on the lawn was a pair of Indigo buntings! They didn't even seem too concerned when I went quietly out the kitchen door to capture a photo. They've appeared several times and how marvelous to think they're looking to settle in for the season here at Lightspring Glen.

So with Spring in full and fabulous force, is it any wonder that when people ask how things are at my new place, my response is, "I'm living in Paradise!"