The Paschal Moon

 

Winter is trying to have the last word today.  The last two days brought an icy wind, seeming determined to hold back spring.  Today the wind is whipping the daffodils, sending the wind chimes on the porch into a frenzy and howling through the chimney in my bedroom.  I think I dreamed last night I was in a Bronte novel – listening to the wuthering wind across the moors.  It was the full moon, the Worm moon of March, or the Paschal moon of this year, the moon that determines the date for Easter. I went out late to fasten the dogs in the yard and stood for a few minutes watching the thin clouds scurry across the face of that moon.  I heard wild geese in the distance and an owl hooting in the woods. I suppose this is redbud winter, the first in a list of what we in the country call “cold spells” that appear before summer’s domination.  No matter what winter says, spring is marching forward.

I was in those woods earlier in the day, climbing down the steep hillside to visit my enchanted wildflower spot.  The bluebells were putting on a show, their pink buds and blue blossoms nodding at the sun.  The trout lilies were making their best attempt to outshine them, their graceful yellow faces reaching for the light, and the rue anemone carpeted their space like a sprinkle of snow.  The trout lilies are the prettiest this year that I have seen in several years; something about the weather this winter and into spring must have given them an extra boost. 

A scatter of yellow violets peek out of the leaves, the trillium are open and a few Dutchman’s britches still remain.  The shooting star has four clusters of buds this year.  I am tempted to put a fence around it to protect it from damage, but that would probably offend Mother Nature, who likes to care for her charges in her own way.    Still to come are the columbine’s gold, the purple of the larkspur and the endearing shoots of the Jack in the pulpit.  The mystery foliage of what looks like some kind of lily are up a few inches.  I don’t know what it is and I have never been able to catch it in bloom to find out.  There is one lonely plant, just above the rest of the flowers and I don’t know where it came from.  Maybe this year the puzzle will be solved.

I sat on my rock and watched the branch trickle along just down the hill, listening to birds sing and squirrels chatter.  This is the beginning of Holy Week, when our hearts break again at the memory of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, then pause for a moment on Saturday before the glorious celebration of sunrise on Easter Sunday.  There is no better reminder of Easter than a garden in spring, when buds that appear to the eye to be lifeless and finished get an unseen signal from deep at their roots and begin to swell.   Soon enough, those nondescript buds will unfold into leaves that give summer shade and then autumn’s fierce colors before they fall to replenish the soil and begin the cycle again.  And isn’t that a perfect reminder of Easter’s promise?

 

The Promise of Spring

 

The spring peepers told me it was time for a trip to the holler.  I came home late one night a couple of weeks ago and heard their spring chorus.  Even though the wind was still chilly and the trees were still bare, it was obvious that spring was creeping in.  Spring always reminds me of a timid swimmer, poking a toe in the water to see if the water is too cold, then jerking back over and over until the temptation is too strong.  After I heard the peepers, the following night I was out getting the dogs in and heard wild geese, honking under the half moon and my heart was lifted.  Isn’t it funny how wild geese calling is such a sad sound in the fall, but such an uplifting sound in March?  I am hearing them almost nightly now, especially at dusk.  And the morning bird song has a new urgency, as nest building and courting begin in earnest.  On my way to church last Sunday, I saw a heron in the little pond beside the road, and yesterday the bees were searching my shrubbery for early blooms.

I searched out my walking stick, called to the dogs and began the climb down the path to my wildflower haven.  I wore the wrong shoes, and had to slip and slide and favor my bad ankle, but the sight of the first clump of bloodroot beside the path made the trip worth the trouble. 

I can remember years when the western bluffs near the river bottom held a carpet of white in the early spring, and I’m glad some of the plants we moved nearer to the house took hold and return every year.  I love the dainty white blooms and how the lobed leaves fold up around them in the evening, cradling them from the chilly night until the sun kisses them open again.  The Native Americans used the reddish sap from the root as a dye and also used the roots for medicine, although I have been told it can be poisonous in large amounts.  The blooms are short-lived, so if you don’t visit at just the right time, you might miss them.  The leaves do make a big show on their own, after the blooms drop, getting larger and larger until they go dormant.

The bluebells were showing pink buds, which in another week or so will develop into a sea of blue, and a few trout lilies poked timidly out of the dead leaves.  The spurge showed its feathery blooms and a few toothwort were blooming.  I was surprised to see a couple of purple trillium in full bloom, at the foot of a tree where maybe they are sheltered from the cold winds.  And I was relieved to see the shooting star, just beginning to put out green leaves.

I sat for a few minutes on a moss covered rock, listening to the murmur of the branch at the foot of the hill.  Sophie and Scout did their impressions of Mufasa, surveying their kingdom from another rock.  Thin sunshine filled the silence of the woods, and I was reminded that this spot is a thin place, where the wall between heaven and here is almost invisible.

One of the dead trees from last year is almost gone – it is only half as tall as before and the holes in the truck are larger.  I expect it may be gone by next spring.  But the goblin tree is still there.  I wish my Aunt Mary could see it.  She is the great aunt who taught me to look for fairies in the woods and that magic might be real.  She would have a story about the faces trapped in that tree and how they got there.  I always think of the Tolkien books when I see the tree, or the story of Merlin trapped in a tree by Nimue.

The climb back up the hill was easier than the trek down the trail.  I stopped on the way to check out the columbine, one of the last remnants from plants gathered almost fifty years ago from an old spring near the river bottom.  It is still there, at the foot of a tree among a patch of bluebells, also started from a few bulbs from the same area.  I am thankful each year that, no matter what happens over the winter, I can count on these old friends – the bluebells, the trout lilies, the trillium, the bloodroot and the dutchman’s britches.  They are a precious gift.