spring is distilled magic
It’s not much, my small piece of the Grand River tripping over blocks of concrete pushed down the bank by the business just above. Three metal culverts slowly rusting channel tiny streams of liquid agates on their journey. A blonde shell nestles in the sand, twenty miles from Lake Michigan. A pair of geese sing their harmony, joining their voices with the chorus of rustling trees. A male robin lands in the creek, dipping in for a bath. Thoreau liked to say he was never alone, “...[W]e may be continually cheered by a like but more normal and natural society, and come to know that we are never alone,” (5). I can agree with him, surrounded by this endlessly varied wildlife. The sparse woods are alive with a symphony of birds rejoicing in the changing of seasons.
The air is warm as I breathe deeply, and I can feel it melting the icy crystals that froze my veins this winter. I think it’s finally Spring. I think about Natalie Diaz’ essay “The First Water is the Body” where she writes, “Translated in to English, ‘Aha Makav means the river runs through the middle of our body, the same way it runs through the middle of our land,’” (1). The streams are running through me, the water in me flowing downstream. I am inexplicably drawn to the banks, the water in me crying out to the almost dry creek. Trailing my finger through the gently running water, I feel the thrill of connection to something greater than myself. Truly I am not at the top of earth’s ecosystem but rather a single member of this majestic interconnected ballad being written with every blade of grass that rustles its way through the winter hardened earth. Water ripples on the underside of the bridge in dancing shadows, and I catch my breath. I still my breathing and close my eyes in reverence of her presence, too bright for me to glance at her without blinding myself.
Spring is distilled magic, life and death side by side. Our greatest hopes and fears sharing a tiny space. Dried grass sprouts brilliant green shoots, scattering across the mud in a magical carpet. Water bugs skitter across liquid ice. A cold burst of air brushes against my shoulders, the fingers of winter grasping for a toe-hold to remind me that she is still here. But Persephone, goddess of Spring, has been released from Hades and won’t waste her precious few months. She whispers a breath and balmy wind trails along my arm. The grass and moss are the first to celebrate her return, unafraid of winter’s icy fingers. The rest of the woods remain silent, waiting patiently for Persephone to awaken them.
Movement catches my eye: the black glint of an ant scurrying along my leg. What is he searching for? If I focus, I think I can feel him through my pant leg. We travel to Africa to feel the majesty of the elephants and leopards. Yet we kill ants. I consider the wonder of this tiny animal running across my arm. The ant is confused, but unafraid of me, a human so much bigger than it, with all the power to destroy the tiny body. I coax it onto my finger and watch as it crawls onto a nearby rock.
My breathing slows to match the pulsing life around me, becoming one with nature. One with the sun. One with the water bugs. I startle a pastel green frog and watch as he leaps into the shadows. A tiny fish darts through the water chasing his shadow across the sandy bottom, disturbing the carbon monoxide, nature’s breath of life, clustered in bubbles on the rocks and algae. He catches sight of me, freezing like a submerged stick. I hold my breath, and he holds still in a staring contest until I finally move and he skitters into the shadow of a rock to join the dozen other fish huddled together.
Slowly raindrops trickle from the sky pulling curtains of water around me. Sheets of rain move downstream rippling the surface into miniature waves. The creek is falling from the sky, a vertical stream from heaven joining earth’s, flowing into my own veins. Petrichor is my favorite word describing my favorite smell: that indescribable scent of rain touching earth.
A bird lands, and I catch a glimpse of brownish red. It’s a female cardinal perched on a stick hovering just above the water. Her brilliant red companion keeps watch from the tree branches. I take a deep breath, at rest for the first time in weeks. I never have time to sit with nature, letting my heart fall into her rhythm. Between classes I speed walk past the newly sprung buttercups and take pictures of dried berries, but I never let myself reconnect with the natural world.
It’s an entire microcosm, a tiny world under this bridge. I’m glad I remembered for once the nature I often forget. There’s a reason we call her Mother Nature, because every time I stop for just a moment to take a deep breath and listen to the birds, it feels like I’m coming home. Wrapped in the warm arms of a loving mother. Sung to sleep with the gentle lullaby of a burbling creek. Fed with the hope and joy of new life. She reminds me to pause and see the beauty all around me even when the sky is cloudy and I can barely see. And when I leave, I am ready to once again face the world, taking a tiny bit of Mother’s wisdom with me. So I sit at her feet, silently listening, and I am at peace.
