Color of Perfection

The colors were perfection today! The redbud is in full bloom and the dogwood is nearly there, still hanging onto a tinge of green in the white. The magnolias are beginning to drop their big petals beneath the trees. Forsythia and daffodils abound around here. There is a civic group of some sort that promotes the planting of daffodils, so they are blooming throughout the town, as well as on nearby farmsteads and business grounds. Oh, my God, thank you for that! I think I cannot see that color without feeling its energy throughout my body. Trees are sprouting leaves and dark wild onion shoots rise above the rich, green, uncut clumps of varied grasses. Some fields are covered with a purple flower I don't know and some yards are awash with bluebells. I have enjoyed driving past the landscapes. The violets are more subtle; one must be up close to catch their beauty. The pink buds on our peach tree have opened to full within the past two days and will probably begin to fade by tomorrow evening. Against the backdrop of dark sky the colors seemed especially brilliant.

Add to this visual delight the voices of birds reveling in the season, the smell of air washed with a recent rain and the soft touch of a cool breeze reaching through the warmth. Today the gift of a Hoosier spring enraptured my heart. Today I am reminded the Earth is a sacred place.

Spring

Today is the first day of spring, the March equinox, Naw-Ruz, the beginning of a new year. We're traveling to Muncie to celebrate with old friends. It's a time of the natural balance between the length of daylight and dark. Today I honor renewal.


This music expresses so much, a fitting tribute to the season. Israel Kamakawiwo'ole was truly a blessing to humanity through his music. One cannot help but recall the renditions of former artists, though, and I think this enhances the overall emotional impact of the piece. I can't seem to get this to post as a link, but the address is www.dailymotion.com/video/xeb6n_somewhere-over-the-rainbow.

Out My Kitchen Window

I love the color of daffodils. But, this is not daffodil season. This is not spring, the season of renewal. Yet, in every season is the season of renewal. Not only is the promise of harvest revealed in the planting, but the potential of planting is revealed in the harvest. I find the color of daffodils in the stray kernels and broken ears of corn that hide among the dry stalks in the harvested field outside my kitchen window.

This morning I don't see the color; I remember the color, the hue of hard kernels found on the slightly frozen but still mushy soil underfoot when I walked the perimeter of this little farm in the lingering gray of the past few overcast mornings. Each morning a light layer of melting snow still held hard-edged footprints of moving deer. Today the temperature is lower, the sky is clear blue and most of the ground is frozen. There is another thin layer of snow, this time sparkling. A flock of crows has settled onto the field and along the mostly bare tree line. Snow covers the field like a crocheted sweater, revealing a tweed under-layer. The remembered color of corn and the remembered color of daffodils mixes in my mind, so the scene of stark branches and snippets of crow silhouettes becomes a symbol of renewal. The seeds of autumn are the seeds of spring. My mind reaches for the chartreuse of spring, but it is stopped. This is late autumn and winter is ahead. O, God, let me remember this moment.