I sort of escaped this winter. The two winters previous I had spent in sunny California, and I even spent a full month of December there this year. This winter I was exposed in the most extreme of ways -- camping and cycling up and down the Utah valley. I even cycled in a snow flurry when it was difficult to see and grains of ice and snow challenged my clothes and core. As I said in another post, it was one of the warmest winters in my life -- singing my songs along the night trail to my tent, waltzing on slippery ice and rock with a heart a-light. A few songs of winds of weather and seasons of change come to my heart. I hope I embody the modest, yet beautiful and hardy flower presented in Gillian Welch's Acony Bell.
The fairest bloom the mountain knows / Is not an iris or a wild rose / But the little flower of which I'll tell / Known as the brave acony bell / Just a simple flower so small and plain / With a pearly hue and a little known name / But the yellow birds sing when they see it bloom / For they know that spring is coming soon / Well it makes its home mid the rocks and the rills / Where the snow lies deep on the windy hills / And it tells the world "why should i wait / This ice and snow is gonna melt away"As I arrived back in South Carolina, winter was still obviously present. There were lots of clouds and wind that makes one feel like a wet towel is being thrown on them once they step outside, and this took some getting used to. It wasn't a week or so before I bought some seeds and put them in the ground. I patiently waited for them to come forth, just as I patiently awaited the next season in my life to begin. Though there was no travelling of much report, I embarked on what Ian Martin calls a "pilgimage of the soul" in his book Storyline: Exploring the Literature of the Appalachian Trail. It reminds me pleasantly of Jack Kerouac during a summer in Dharma Bums, him spending the majority of his waking hours meditating in the back yard of his parents' upstate New York house, not travelling but exploring nonetheless -- meditating and pondering. I remember the cold months and spring months before my mission, sleeping outside in the 4x8 enclosure and waking to teeming lawn grass and small bushes offering a feeling of coziness. Nothing can describe how beautiful it seemed to me.
And so I'll sing that yellow bird's song / For the troubled times will soon be gone.
Each morning, I go out in the early-day shadows and check on my precious 3x3 plot and eye the fruits of my labors. It is nothing large, but it is a spiritual and explorative act for me. As spring breathed damp warmth on my face, I bulked up on honeydew melon, cherry tomato, kentucky wonder (pole bean), dill and spearmint (these attract beneficial insects, which improve the soil and/or keep plant-eating pest populations in control). I would sometimes sing this song as I walked out in the mornings
Oh little red bird / Come to my window sill / Been so lonesome / Shaking that morning chill / Oh little red bird / Open your mouth and say / Been so lonesome / Just about flown away
So long now I've been out / In the rain and snow / But winter's come and goneA little bird told me so
Oh little blue bird / Pearly feather breast / Five cold nickels all I got leftOh little blue bird / What am I gonna do / Five cold nickels / Ain't gonna see me through
So long now I've been out/ In the rain and snow/ But winter's come and gone a little bird told me so
Oh little black birdOn my wire line/ Dark as trouble/ In this heart of minePoor little black bird/ Sings a worried song/ Dark as trouble 'Til winter's come and gone
So long now I've been out / In the rain and snow / But winter's come and gone a little bird told me so
So long now I've been out / In the rain and snow / But winter's come and gone a little bird told me so
