OPEN GROUND, OPEN UNIVERSE, FREE AT LAST
It was a gentle winter season. The fact that there is open ground here, and lots of warming, healing sun, means that the growing season will start at least two weeks ahead of most years. It is a wonderful reprieve from the Canadian winter, which can be brutal and last well past the calendar change, in late March. It feels like we’ve cheated somehow, and that nature must be preparing some wild spring retort to make up for the kindnesses unseasonably bestowed.
I will take this gift and suck the marrow of each and every warm and sparkling day. Even a warm rainy day may find me holed-up in some dry portal overlooking this emerging bogland, so full of sounds from tinkling, invisible run-off water, to the rustling of mice and moles working beneath the matted grasses. This little paradise on earth is my story-book....the natural place on earth that amazes and inspires me daily.....pleases me by simplicity and uncomplicated companionship, which asks nothing from me in return for my observances. I wish more people would take a few moments daily to visit spots like this, to appreciate how nature rises to the call of the season, the strength of the sun, and nurturing of the moist, rich soil of its own history.
Throughout the winter months I have found a few minutes daily to be its observer, a recorder, and its has left an imprint on my soul. It can be a lonely, even threatening place in the midst of a winter storm, a poetic place on a snowy winter’s eve, a remarkable place when the sunrise sparkles in those first few moments reflecting off the newly fallen snow,..... and a peaceful, wonderful solitude for contemplation, when the pace of modern life becomes an unhealthy burden. On a beautiful sunny day as this, it is as much a contradictory place,.... as it is both peaceful and a sanctuary for the weary, yet it possesses a powerful aura of regeneration and rebirth, that reminds the soul how dependent and lowly it is in the grand scheme. It kinship to the heart-broken, the depressed, the life-weary, restores good faith in the relevance of all life....the coil of seconds, minutes, hours and days spinning in this cycle and universality of mortal existence. I can experience fear and trembling, as might a sage watcher, a bard, looking out upon this huge transition of life-force, and at the same time allow myself the liberty of spiritual freedom, fearing not the consequence of being in the path of a ravenous nature, bursting at the seams to touch the sun. It is at times, like watching a huge, unwieldy creature rising up from the muck of pre-history, and being unsure whether it will be kindly to the observer, or devour the intruder as a means of sustenance. Just as one shields from the storm-front thundering over this peaceful place, there is that subtle reminder about survival of the fittest. Is this watcher in the woods strong and resourceful enough to keep step with nature’s progress? Might I perish as a bystander, in this sudden storm, a product of this same nature that has so graciously cradled me against this sun drenched tree? Yes it might well do this. I could be drawn up into the vortex of rotating wind and spit out like a seed down onto a far away neighborhood, where my body will imprint for awhile, be written about by some on-call reporter, and return to dust and soil as is pre-determined and non-negotiable. One must then rely on the wits nature implanted in the mortal, mental capacity, of utilizing logic and reason, as peaked by sensory perception....the instinct to seek cover in the event of storm and flood.....and trust that our instincts are in rhythm with the rigors of the impending situation. In the meantime, we watch and absorb the world around us, honing survival skills.
It is a seductive aura that lures me deeper each day, and keeps me here longer and longer, away from my tasks.....eroding my serious side and flourishing the ambition and nordic Thule for endless adventure, quite beyond my mortal means. It is the fatal attraction, a heartfelt allure to wander to the ends of the earth, because it feels so naturally intended. Yet I bask here in the afternoon sun thinking about exploration and investigation, preferring instead, at this moment, to allow my senses to invigorate as they see fit, while body rests against this old pine, contoured to the shape of my back....in the perfect place above the Bog to hear, feel, and see this concert-in-regalia perform.....to my peril or my profit, I can not tell.
Soon there will be the spring storms that pound down over the open waters of Georgian Bay, and our lakes here in South Muskoka, and many more of these leaning old birches will be toppled by the wind. The rain will bring stronger greens and deeper, broader roots to hold these grasses tight to the earth. It will turn lush and cool in the summer heat, and I will again come for a daily respite, to wander through the outstretched ferns and berried shrubs that thrive upon the embankment above the bog. There will be wind storms and dry spells, and humid periods that will keep us with fan and beverage on overhanging decks; and there will be pleasant days of moderate temperature, when the footfall on this path will be of the young and old, travellers from here to there, with a desire to see the land as if it was a theater, the actors, the creatures, the moose, deer, bear and squirrels that live in this moor beside the lake,..... and all will be contented in the seasons of the year.....until of course, they are inconvenienced by the sting in the air from December winds again, and the driving snow of a future January. Ah, what pleasure there is in recounting the days of our seasons, when there is so much to love and loathe, celebrate and tolerate, but be inspired by, as it is the mirror of life itself we ought better to know.