One of Those March Days
On the unusual language of our mutual germination
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Wind marks the transition between seasons in Northern New Mexico. Dry wind — the kind that agitates the senses — and mud that coats paws and suctions around walking boots. Emblematic of its military-inspired moniker, March can seem like a landscape across which one must trudge from territory to territory. Dickens described the temper of this month in Great Expectations: “It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”
The sun gradually climbs toward the equator. I unbutton my jacket. A tendril of cold touches my neck. I shiver and burrow my head under a wool cap. I am continuously learning how to get unstuck. Today, the image of another child, shrouded. A mother confronting another day of terrible unknowing. With each step, I name these things with bewilderment.
Why are we not better than we are?
I try to focus on the life that is here, but everything speaks of everything else. Here, dead pines ravaged by bark beetles will have to be removed to prevent a contagion. Here, my son has pulled a little tooth with jagged edges from his mouth and strung it on a necklace.
And here are a few more facts. According to Pew Research, 81% of adults in the U.S. say there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, even if we cannot see it. 46% say they feel a deep sense of wonder about the universe at least once or twice a month, and a similar share (44%) say they feel a sense of spiritual peace and well-being with the same frequency. Also, a folk etymology of the apotropaic incantation abracadabra is avra kehdabra, a biblical Hebrew/Aramaic word from Genesis that means “I will create as I speak” or “I create with the word.”
So, here is another voice I want to hear: a murmur is rising from the deep. Green inspiration is unfurling into form. Time ripens and sleeping palaces breathe themselves awake again. In winter it seems impossible to imagine, but beneath the thin world of our human happenings, nature has all along been secretly, marvelously conjuring.
The rhythm of emergence is a gradual slow beat always inching its way forward; change remains faithful to itself until the new unfolds in the full confidence of true arrival. Because nothing is abrupt, the beginning of spring nearly always catches us unawares. It is there before we see it; and then we can look nowhere without seeing it.
- ”To Bless the Space Between Us” by John O’Donohue
Any garden we have ever loved depends on this private resurrection. Our growth, too, is often obscured beneath and behind a gradual sequence of unfolding. Our growth, too, cannot be agitated but must continuously emerge from a thawing ground.
John O’Donohue wrote that we must “put our eye to the earth at an unusual angle to glimpse the circle toward which all things aspire.” We rarely speak to each other in such strange terms, but I believe authentic rituals can provide the conditions to sense our belonging. I recently interviewed Mark Jensen, an herbalist elder and dear friend, who described to me the forest walks that have contextualized his daily life for more than forty years. He spoke of greeting a certain plant that intrigued him, year after year, with faithfulness and friendliness and unassuming attention — until, one day, he felt the blessing of a mysterious and reciprocal salutation.
Soon, seemingly out of nowhere, a stream moving down the mountain may call your attention. In the early morning, or whenever your senses lean toward the liminal, listen for this low hum — a loving, unearthing resonance. Tender saplings may have broken ground overnight; a fist of color may have opened; and you may find yourself once again in communion with nature’s awakening. In time, you may even learn a language, unusual and all your own, shared by lichen and seedlings. Hello down there? I am here. You are here. It is enough. Please, keep going.