Pausing to Listen

The channel on our part of Georgian Bay has opened with the milder weather and the water is full of migratory ducks; Buffleheads, Goldeneyes and Mergansers.  They have come back once again.  The trees on the shore are full of male Red-winged Blackbirds who are trilling their hearts out.  They will soon find marshy real estate to set up housekeeping with the females who will arrive once that work is done.  The nuthatches have started investigating our bird houses in the yard with nesting on their minds.  The pair of Robins near our dock were doing a mating dance yesterday.

Out in the bush, the snow is melting.  We walked there on the weekend.  I stopped to rub the needles of cedars, junipers, balsam, spruce and pine.  I breathed in the resins that were released deep into my lungs.  I know that they will improve my immune system.  The Japanese idea of “forest bathing” has taught us this.  In the cold weather though, I think maybe the resins won’t be released, so I gently rub the needles in my fingers and thank the trees for sharing their medicines with me.  Diana Beresford-Kroeger has taught me that the healing qualities of the resin will go from the air in my lungs into my blood stream and then to my immune system.  In this time of great uncertainty, I have taken that knowledge from an intellectual curiosity into practice.  In the bush, you wouldn’t know about the fear that is in the air for humans.  In the bush, spring is appearing and I am aware of the pharmacopeia that I am walking through.

We are being put “on pause” it seems.  Our very busyness and insatiable need to travel has helped to get us to this pause.  It is a shock to the senses and we must grieve the loss of the activities which we engage in while we try to project a future that will be different.  We, in the west are not so good at cooperating for the common good.  We have built our societies on individualism and now we are being asked, forced, scared into changing our behaviours to think of others.  Lives have become more important than money suddenly.  That is a paradigm shift for sure.  While we are being asked to socially distance and isolate, we realize how valuable our social connections are.  We are being asked to look out for the most vulnerable in our society and keep our hearts open.  Opening the heart is a good antidote for fear which shuts it down.

We are being asked by this situation to be creative, proactive, immediate.  In the spaces created by the pause, we can actually slow down, think about what is truly important and be creative.  Suddenly out in the bush feels safer than in crowds.  Out in the bush, life goes on.  We sat on a bench in the woods and had a snack while chickadees landed on the seeds we had placed on mitts and the top of my hat.  We welcomed their company.   My grandson sat on the snow, hand open with seeds in it and some on his hat while the chickadees whirred around him, feeding, singing, delighting our hearts.  Nearby, we could hear the drumbeat of the woodpeckers.  Our drum circle has been cancelled for the next month or so but we will drum in our home anyway.  Our story telling circle has been cancelled but people are trying to figure out how to do that through Zoom or Skype.  Parents are figuring out how to keep their school aged kids occupied for the next three weeks or so.  The experts recommend taking them outside to the parks, to the forest.

Our maple tree is sharing its sap with us.  We drink it straight from the tree as a spring tonic.  Today, I found onion greens poking out of the soil and added them to my sandwich.  I was so grateful for this gift from the Earth.  After lunch we walked in a different forest.  I picked up fallen hemlock and pine greens to take home and boil in water to release the resins into the house.  The smells are comforting and calming.  I scan the open areas for greens shooting up but so far none can be seen.  “Pay attention,” whispers the forest.  “We can teach you everything you need to learn about cooperating, about community, about being healthy.”  In the stillness from all the activity of business as usual, I am listening to this most ancient of stories.