Category: Spring

a meditation on spring

a meditation on spring

by Kelly (of rituals) ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

The Universe has conspired to reveal signs of spring–even to me–she who remains indoors, in spite of herself–a boycott to unseasonable weather.

For days now, I’ve watched, as the single green seat cushion–the one that we bought on clearance, and placed outside–prematurely–atop one of the four metal seats–that came with the round patio table–that we brought home from the Marlboro Community Sale–on free day–takes a tour around my yard, compliments of a wintry wind.

At first it blew to the South, near the Birch that I loved when we first cleared this land for our home, but which over the years has become a stump of itself. I worried that we’d lose our single cushion, but I didn’t go outside to retrieve it.

The next day, I noticed that it had blown into the West, just past the raised beds.
The first, second, third, fourth, fifth sixth…
Every year we added another.
We stopped at 7.

The cushion was closer now, so I could easily grab it, without too much exposure, but I left it there, in the cold, while I remained warm inside.

I’m not sure what the cushion did during the nights, whether it headed North, or over the house, but the next morning, I looked out from my bedroom to spy it near the outdoor shower, in the East, at the edge of the woods.

I left it there, until I came home that afternoon from work, and saw that it had moved closer, beside something of… color.

COLOR?
COLOR!

I dashed from my car, past the woodshed, past the tool shed, over the place where the remnants of the last snow pile left its debris, and up the stone path to the wannabee garden of perennials competing with weeds where we dug in a handful of bulbs despite our historical need for immediate gratification.

There beside the fair cushion was the COLOR PURPLE!
The first color of spring!

I ran inside for the camera, and took a tour around the land–to each of the places where the cushion led,
and then brought it inside,
for safekeeping.

Sighs of spring…

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Sunrise, Easter Morning

Sunrise, Easter Morning

by Kelly (of rituals) ♥ 1 Comment
Sto. Cristo Chapel Bgy. Sto. Cristo, San Isidro, Nueva Ecija, Phil.
Sto. Cristo Chapel
Bgy. Sto. Cristo, San Isidro, Nueva Ecija, Phil.

My husband and I lounge under the covers as a jeweled sun sparkles through the trees on its way to our sky.

When the wind blows, the forest sways, dispatching flashes of gold onto our bodies, offering a perfect sermon for a Sunday morning.

Easter 2015, A.D.

The baskets are waiting. The eggs dyed. The reservations for brunch confirmed.

Last night we watched Chocolat with Lake Champlain 5 Star Chocolate Bars, and then listened to bits and pieces of the soundtrack from Godspell, centering on the score for the Crucifixion scene.

Most memorable, however, was the moment I pulled out 4 plates (of my Nana’s china) instead of 3, because our oldest was home.

Last Supper.

He had surprised us, downtown, the night before, when we were doing what I love best–floating from place to place, bumping into something sweet–which is particularly potent on a spring evening at Gallery Walk in Brattleboro.

Good Friday.

My youngest and I had just finished our monthly stroll through the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center–one of our favorite stops through the years–where we always take time to visit the kids room to make some art of our own.

It was inside the River Garden, however, where the family first came together, as a whole, attracted by the sounds of horns, played by the stunning Brattleboro High School Jazz Band.

During a particularly poignant interlude–when my husband’s hand clasped mine, and geese flew over the river, and spring stirred inside me–I felt something I’d never felt before:

Resentment.
Toward new life.

In that moment,  I knew the seasons were indifferent.
That spring would come, whether I welcomed it, or celebrated it, or–worse yet–
whether I was here for it.

Perhaps it was my age, 51, ripening past peak, or the long white winter spilling into April, or that a loved one’s life was on the line; but suddenly—the young girls in bloom, the birds return, and the color green–represented something beyond–me.

Just like winter, I would pass, and the giddy world would go on resurrecting… without me.

The Great Escape

The Great Escape

by Kelly (of rituals) ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

1970951_10152342628658746_1383157807_n-1“Be in a devotional relationship to your life force.”
(Shiva Rea)

On Saturday, we had one exquisite hour of hope: the sun shined and the temperatures rose above freezing for the first time in way too long of a time.

Everyone (and I mean, everyone) abandoned their snow encrusted homes on the hill and ventured forth to points east and south.

We were among those souls, stopping in town for provisions: the library, the pharmacy, the grocery store–and coming across handfuls of neighbors moving from place to place. We were like a village of ants. Not so much joyful or even relieved, as we were urgent about capturing this moment.

The clouds moved in later that afternoon, as did the rain, but before then we made our way further south, heading to a place with less snow and a larger art museum, where we came across yet another handful of neighbors who had done the same.

Then came Sunday. Frozen and cloudy and winter all over again. I checked the weather: more of the same on Monday. I re-read my daily inspiration: “Be in a devotional relationship with your body,” and I hatched a plan to do just that.

Monday came in dark and cold and heavy, but I followed through with devotion.

I headed south, alone, in my car, with my backpack and my journal.

I’d been to the Butterfly Conservatory at least once every winter before, but this time would be different. I wouldn’t just stroll through and then depart. I would stick.

I spent 3 hours on the same bench among the butterflies and the flowers and the warm moist air.

I sat. I drew. I read. I wrote. I even napped.

There was the sound of water. Of toddlers toddling. Of birds peeping.

There were scents of life unfolding.

And there was fluttering.

Constant fluttering of magic, color and wonder.

And then it was Tuesday. Today. Brilliantly sunny. Still frozen, but with temperatures climbing, promising true spring.

POSTED!

POSTED!

by Kelly (of rituals) ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

17591643The sight of the Legal Load Limit sign at the bottom of our road brings a leap of joy to my heart.

“POSTED!” I say, with an exhale of…

Spring!

Followed by a flip

of my stomach.

Not so easy, I remember.

Like any birth, first comes
the labor.

And like any labor, we can’t  be sure how

long,
it will last.

How hard
it will feel.

How filled with complications
it will be.

In Vermont that labor is called

MUD Season.

And it lasts longer than any labor,
so long that it really is a “season,” apart from the others
spanning weeks or crossing over into a second month.

Every year, we consider a truck.

We can’t afford one.

But it’s a necessity, we sigh.

Until it’s over.

And then, like any mother,
with a newborn in her arms,
we forget.

Spring returns, and we swoon.

 

Where I belong

Where I belong

by Kelly (of rituals) ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

img_2220The Co-op is quiet this morning; the town itself demure–wet and waiting–for spring.

The ice spitting from the sky before dawn was the first sign that the winter was willing to surrender, something, before April.

I step through the tiny glistening shards as I cross the parking lot, thinking the day dark and heavy, just as the first flock of geese flies overhead, announcing its return.

The regulars are waiting. Mostly men. Mostly older men. Like an Italian piazza. They talk politics, instead of bocce ball, because this is Brattleboro. One has a wild, silvery beard and could be in Russia, playing chess. Talking treason. Instead he is running for office. Asking for signatures. Interrupting his companions’ reading of the cafe copies of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

There are 8 men now, some a bit younger, one on a computer with headphones, smiling. A single, middle-aged woman unpacks her morning pills, her breakfast, her book.

“It’s like we are home,” says the cafe attendant, as I step up to the sink to wash my dishes. “We all know each other. It’s the way it should be.”

I don’t know any of them, really, but I know their faces, and their smiles, and their bad days. I join them in their morning ritual, a few times a month, when I’m needing an escape from working on the hill, where I live, encrusted in snow.

The mountain across the river is our steady companion, in every season. The Co-op itself sits beside a brook that runs into that river. The black, grated iron along its banks defines and holds the space we occupy: captures our silent gaze, keeps us safe, serves as a leaning place for children tossing pebbles.

As we crest 9:00 am, the cafe empties and fills, new faces, a few women; and the traffic across the bridge and up the main thoroughfare picks up to a hum to fill in everything in between.

A father and son cross the street at the light, beside the tall amber grasses at the corner, which some kind souls planted to remind us that there are other colors coming even when the world has been monochrome for so long.

It is this time each year, March, when I seriously consider moving; but this morning I’m right where I belong.