It is winter and I am spending one of my first full wintery
season in this forever Winter (Feels like forever) in many years. There are chickadees tripping the light
fantastic from bush to tree to stalks tall enough to grip. How be they so happy in this cold? I guess they appreciate the little things
like sunshine and an extra degree of warmth.
When it happens, they sing their hearts out. I must learn to be grateful for small
mercies.
These sweet little birds teach us about perseverance
and patience, as well. They hunker down
and get through a cold snap, a snowy day, and I think they are dreaming up new
songs as they wait. Perhaps they are
remembering warmer days and keeping watch for the first sign of Spring. When they are still, it is hard to discern a
bulby branch from the chickadee. One
hears their beautiful cheerful song and we seek to see what could be so
cheerful in all this cold and white.
Perhaps they are grateful just for long dark cold night to end. They must realize they have just made it
through night's harshness and sing for joy at being given another day. I am pretty sure, their wildly beating hearts
and rush of wings as they dart, swoop, light and take off, in a rush of....is
it joy?
They are the small heralds that hold me through the
cold and I do them great injustice, peering around the area, looking for the
red breast of a Robin...Of course, too soon.
I am anxious, too anxious, for the next season. But, when it first happens, we have to go
through mud season. All the sins of the
winter season are uncovered, and it is not a nice looking change, and so we all
get through it to enjoy what comes next.
Life goes on, in spite of Mother Nature's cold
cleansing and stillness. The night hoot
of an owl, keeps me company. I am
grateful for him too. But he seems a
doomsday sentinel to me. The
chickadees' tenacity in the bite of
freeze are the ones who cause me HOPE.
They are small fleeting wisps of HOPE.
In those moments, brief and fleeting, I can make it through one more
winter.
In this page is the stillness and the lesson of the
chickadees...be still...have patience...hunker down...get through it. It is simplistic and a simple page using
stencils. In its simplicity, and
bareness, huddles small bits of hope.
Can you express small things that we might forget to
take lessons from? Yes, you can!
©Carol Desjarlais 2.11.20
The secret of life me thinks ,lays in the signs from the animals.
ReplyDeleteI have been feeding the birds all winter, they sent me messages every day.I am so grateful for them as they give me much joy. One just has to watch them. Different species come at different times of the day. Interesting. As winter is so long with not much to pass the time, these little creatures have kept me company.
Yes yes...here it is all chickadees and occasional crow or owl hoot.... Little things.. And, I see people walking the blocks..some with dogs, some just strolling and think, "I should get out there!" Then, I step out and it is cold and I change my mind. lol
DeleteI have become a hermit . Only go out when I have to "drive" to town. No exercise . No desire.
DeleteI refuse to be a a hermit.. it would do me in. I remember first moving to Maine and not knowing anyone for two years because i was writing my book...suddenly I realized I had no friends and I set out to meet them. I would not be healthy without getting out..for sure, I know this.
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