Outdoor Encounters

The world at our latitude soon will break free from the grip of cold, long nights and short days. The effects of warmth, shorter nights, and surging hormones will stimulate the exuberance of spring.

Some tree buds are showing growth; others soon will follow. The fox squirrel has completed the first of its species’ two breeding seasons per year. Soon the many species of flowering plants will begin to display their reproductive structures, most of which we won’t notice. Who can describe the flowers of an ash tree, of big bluestem grass, of curly dock, or of common mullein—even though the mullein flower/seed stalk may reach 6-7 feet tall? Fish, frogs, turtles, and countless species of insects and other invertebrates soon will get into the act. Mosses, and not necessarily only on the north sides of trees and rocks, will begin their complicated reproductive task.

These actions soon will be in process all over our campus, but in greater variety in the less manicured areas. This accelerating frenzy reminds me of the lines from a poem by Galway Kinnell, a top-rank American poet:

 

On some hill of despair

the bonfire

you kindle can light the great sky—

though it’s true, of course, to make it burn

you have to throw yourself in.

When young, we probably dreamt of someday “lighting a fire.” But life offered distractions we may have accepted, taking us away from that true fire smoldering in our deep psyche; that fire of true self-fulfillment; that fire that we, for whatever reasons, kept suppressed, kept from leaping into flames of reality.

Creatures in nature, to survive, whether knowingly or unknowingly, must heed the call to “throw yourself in.” Knowingly or unknowingly, they live lives of great risk—and yet, they persevere. For that they deserve all honor and respect.