February 28, 2019 - The Bones of Winter

The white trunks and branches of the birch trees reach up into the blue winter sky.  Like all trees, they are the bones of the earth.  But unlike the other trees that try to hide this fact, the white birches jut outward like the cold, bleached bones they are, unashamed.  Like macabre skeletons, they dance against the deep blue background.

Earth's skeleton.

I cannot help but think that winter is their favorite season.  In the summer, they are engulfed in greenery like all trees, drowned out by the sheer weight and volume of the green growth of the season.  After the initial greedy gulp of green occurs in the spring, people turn their glances away from the trees, glutted with vegetation.  Fickle humans.  “Give me greens!  Give me flowers!  Give me fruit!”  It never ends.

No one says, “Give me bones!”  Give me skeletons that click and clack back and forth in the wind.  Give me life bleached out and dry and brittle.  Give me carcasses and stiff remains and hollow shells.  Give me washed-out corpses and rattling cadavers shimmering against the dark blue sky, lit up like the true “bone-fire” they are by the winter sun.

Remember us, say the bleached birches, when the spring comes.  We are the foundation, the frame, the scaffolding, the support system of the world.  Do not be fooled by the transient green, here today and back in the spirit world tomorrow.  We are the fabric of the world, the shell, the structure, the frame, the scheme, the essence of the planet--clicking in our antique rib cages, dancing in the frozen blue.

February 15, 2019 - The Tiny Seed

Where are you now, tiny seed?  Oh, tiny bit of life in a little tan envelope, placed in the soil and long since frozen over.  The ground is now hard with several inches of ice over it and many more inches of snow on top of that.  Where is the tiny seed?  How could it possibly survive all the harshness of the dark and cold?

We know from experience that somehow every year the tiny seed emerges, and life bursts forth in a massive riot of green.  Yet every year we cannot help but wonder, will this be the year the tiny seed does not come back?  Maybe this year was too much for it.  And even though we find ourselves gratefully wrong every year, still we wonder in earnest the following winter, will this be the year the tiny seed does not come back?

Somewhere in the darkness . . .

In the dark of the night I planted a seed.  I buried it in the depths of my mind, hidden far, far down in the darkness.  Then the destruction came, and everything died around me.  The ice slowly built and enclosed the once-fertile land, and the white snow piled deep and thick and cold.  Somewhere underneath it all, the tiny seed sat in its tiny cell, silent, quiet, at peace.

And I didn’t even ask the question, will this be the year the tiny seed does not come back?  Because I had forgotten all about the tiny seed.  Too much sorrow.  Too much death and destruction.  The world had turned cold, and so had I.  It was a natural progression of ice building upon ice.  Shimmering, crystal ice, perfect in its form.  There is peace in the frozen world as well, I thought, beauty locked in timeless hexagons of primordial power.

But just like the tiny seed in the frozen earth (and really, there is no difference at all), just like the seed that somehow explodes into a mass of greenery in the world again, the tiny seed I had planted deep within my mind stirred.  It swelled and rolled and pulsated.  And suddenly it leapt from the depth of my consciousness, fully grown before me, and handed me a sword.  “Go and get the light,” it said, “And if it does not come willingly, grab it and take it!”

But the light loves tiny seeds, and where the seed goes, so goes the light.  Many believe that it is the other way around, that the seed follows the light.  But that is not true.  It is the light that follows the seed.  For what good is a world of brilliance if it is locked in pristine sterility?  No.  It is the seed that bursts forth with the enchanting beauty of life, brought to its full potential by the light, that brings the world to fruition.

The sword was not necessary, but I kept it anyway as a guardian, protecting the Path between the world of potential and the world of form.  Just beyond the Sword’s reach is the Light.  The guardian (or perhaps the gardener?) asks at sword point of all who wander down the path, “Who goes there?!”  All falter and stop and turn around, because only a tiny seed may enter.