blossoms

I was driving to Tinmouth yesterday morning to change cars with Allyn. As I was heading into Tinmouth, I remembered a spot along the side of the road where in year's past there had been stands of bloodroot. Bloodroot is the first of the spring ephemerals to appear. Its appearance heralds the start of the wildflower season in Vermont.

Sure enough, there they were, in exactly the same spot that I remembered. For me there was something very uplifting about that. At first I couldn't figure out exactly why. After all, that's what you would expect, that events in the natural world would be more or less the same from season to season. I've been doing this blog for over 10 years. When you start to chronicle the changes happening all around you, you start to notice more and more. Your neighborhood begins to expand. If you're lucky, you can start to approach the point where you feel intimately involved and a part of almost everywhere you go. Even when you look up into the blackness of a January evening and notice the constellation Orion right where it's always been, blazing away, right next to the constellation Gemini. The whole universe can feel like it's just a part of your neighborhood. Everywhere at home.

Went up to the Zen Center yesterday. The magnolia trees dedicated to the memory of my mother and brother are blossoming there, just like they do every year at this time. Speaking of blossoms, a granddaughter was born yesterday to one of the readers of this blog. Congratulations to Isabel, Ingrid, and Lee!