A SOJOURN OVERDUE - THE END OF FEBRUARY, SPRING BECKONING

As a public school kid, I had a crush every spring. As a high school student, the same. As a unattached writer for quite a few years, I had a crush from early March to whenever the apple of my eye let me know there was no way in hell. Yet even with love lost, I’ve long been respectful of this time of the year, and always feel invigorated to explore and trundle about, shaking away the crust of relative hibernation. What better than getting poetic and walking through these freshly decorated trees above the Bog. There’s something important to learn here.....and I’m still questing. If there is a meaning of life, I know it is to be found somewhere in this precious woodland......in the atmosphere above this gently, subtly haunted place on earth.

Although possibly, a too early postmortem of the past winter season, I must admit an eagerness to see green earth again, and watch the tightly wound coils of maturing ferns that fill in this beautiful Muskoka lowland. I do recall my mother Merle, insisting that I “not wish away time,” as it was “too precious for a child to waste.” Merle was a lover of life without question. It became particularly acute in her 40's, when a doctor suggested her health was seriously failing. She worked hard, over many years, to lower her blood pressure, lose a massive amount of weight, and both see and enjoy life in so many different ways. Merle survived well into her eighties and to her final moment, had a confident smile that she had lived up to what she preached. I often think about this when I’m wandering through our neighborhood bogland, stopping to listen to the chickadees and woodpeckers at work and passtime, and waxing poetic about life and afterlife. Indeed, I don’t want to miss anything here......it’s all so important to the sense of well being.

Most folks pass this Bog by, every day, without the slightest notice. Even when they walk here to get their mail from the neighborhood drop-off, they would sooner read their mail on the return trip, than glance into the snow-laden gallery, which provides such a vision of solitude and enchantment. These folks have given up on their inner child......the child that would run free in this same woodland if given a chance.....celebrating liberation from the overseer.

There is the unmistakable aura of spring, manifesting in its peculiar splendor, just beyond the vision that greets us this morning. It is so spectacular for the soul, to be exposed to this grand potential for renewed life......as the power of regeneration vibrates beneath our feet.....on this final day of February 2011. I am not so foolish as to wish this day away. It is as precious as all the others. Symbolic in that it concludes the most dangerous months of the winter season, by calendar at least. From early forecasts, it might also appear that midnight will see March enter as a lamb.....and depart, well, as a raging lion. I shall celebrate whatever nature brings, as it is the architect of the future. Through blizzard and calm, windstorm, and rain, I will venture here to find Muskoka as spirited and effervescent as always. And when those tight rings of rich, green ferns, begin to unfurl into the patches of spring sunlight, forgive me the indulgence of feeling restored and enthralled, about all the possibilities for new adventure.

There is still a gentle flurry of snow settling upon the bogland at this time of writing. It is such a picturesque scene, and I’m sure Merle would have put Mozart, on her old record player, to enhance the vision. I don’t have a record player today but I can still hear Mozart. I can still see the old girl sitting on her chair by the window, looking out at the treetops catching the heavy new snow. And sense her contentment that “life is good.”

I wonder how many people in Muskoka, feel the same about the seasons as I do. If this neighborhood is any example, then I fear the answer is “not enough.”

To truly protect the environment, in this region in the future, as development stresses continues to increase, its defenders must be aware of this disconnect of the general population......who have become desensitized to the hinterland that houses them.