Nature’s Remedy

View through a frosty windshield

“When it is wintertime in your life, you are going through pain, difficulty, or turbulence.  At such times it is wise to follow the instinct of nature and withdraw into yourself.  When it is winter in your soul, it is unwise to pursue any new endeavors.  You have to lie low and shelter until this bleak, emptying time passes on.  This is nature’s remedy.  It minds itself in hibernation.  When there is great pain in your life, you, too, need sanctuary in the shelter of your own soul.”
— John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

This has been a winter of hibernation for me.  My interior landscape seems to mirror the gray monochromatic winter outside.  I don’t mind withdrawing, pulling back, letting go of ambitions while I re-group and lie fallow.  I just wish I were a more skilled thinker.  My thoughts seem to scatter all over the place.  I wonder if I ever have anything original to say.  My habit of copying quotes from my reading — words and phrases that resonate with me — makes it so easy to defer to other people’s voices.  They seem much more skilled at saying what I mean than I do!

Here’s a scary thought:  what would happen if I stopped reading books, even for a month or a year.  Would I start hearing my own voice more clearly?  (I can tell how addicted I am to reading by how absolutely reluctant I am to act on this idea!!)  Do I need to reclaim my own life?

 

 

 

Frosty Mornings, the Gelid World

January morning at Green Lake

“How glorious the perfect stillness and peace of the winter landscape.”
—  Henry David Thoreau, from Winter:  The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 8, December 31, 1854

Path through the frosty grass, Green Lake

“We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day.  We must make root, send out some little fibre at least, even every winter day. . . . Staying in the house breeds a sort of insanity always.”
—  Henry David Thoreau, from Winter:  The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 8, December 29, 1856

I took Thoreau’s advice and walked around Green Lake on this frosty January morning.  It was crisp and clear.  I saw three great blue herons, a bald eagle perched in a tree, honking Canada geese, foraging ducks, and other Seattleites out to enjoy the fresh air.

Joggers at Green Lake

Fishing from the dock, bundled up, enjoying the natural world

One of three great blue herons (notice the frosty back feathers)

The Annunciation of the Frost

“I wake to a glittering world,
to the annunciation of the frost.”
—  Stanley Kunitz, from “Journal for My Daughter”

It’s been cold, but clear, here in Seattle for the past week.  I woke to frost on my car windshield.  The cold immobilizes me.  It must be a sign of my old age that I do not want to venture out, but instead burrow under throws and quilts on the couch where Jellybean can purr like a furnace on my stomach as I read my books.

Ice Armor

Frost-rimed grasses in the garden

“Every leaf and twig was this morning covered with a sparkling ice armor; even the grasses in exposed fields were hung with innumerable diamond pendants, which jingled merrily when brushed by the foot of the traveller.  It was literally the wreck of jewels and the crash of gems.”
— Henry David Thoreau, Journals, January 21, 1838

I remember ice storms from my childhood in Minnesota — every tree, branch and twig was coated in a clear shield of ice.  Too bright for unprotected eyes.  Precarious footing.  And yes, merry tinkling when the shards of ice fell down.

These frosty January mornings in Seattle are a less piercing pleasure — no crashing crystals, just a silent icy edging.  Here are some photos of this magical world:

These grasses looked like ribbon with their white edging giving a pleasant contrast

Petal pattern, with frost

Edged ferns

Christmas colors! Red and green.

In the winter garden

Layered maple leaves

Nature’s calligraphy

The frost gives a new meaning to the idea of a white garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Starving for Want of Wonder

Ornamental kale with melting frost

”  . . . the object of my school is to show how many extraordinary things even a lazy and ordinary man may see if he can spur himself to the single activity of seeing.”
— G. K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles

“The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder.”
— G. K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles

“O wonderful,
wonderful,
and most wonderful wonderful!
And yet again wonderful . . .”
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It

I spend altogether too much time indoors in winter and feel starved for nature and light.  I don’t know why I resist the outdoors so much, because once I’m in the rhythm of walking and looking — even in the cold — I’m always glad I made the effort.  My spirit seems to open up outdoors.

I almost always find things that I am moved to photograph.  Like this water-beaded ornamental kale in a neighbor’s winter garden.  Worthy of an attempt to capture in my nature journal.

My work table

Watercolor sketch of kale leaves

Lacy Fronds, Plumes,Tendrils, Crystal Forests

Tendrils of frost on a car windshield

Frost
by Valerie Worth, from All the Small Poems and Fourteen More

How does
The plain
Transparency
Of water

Sprout these
Lacy fronds
And plumes
And tendrils?

And where
Before window-
Panes, did
They root

Their lush
Crystal forests,
Their cold
Silver jungles?

Frosty windows

Frosty January morning

 

A Tree is Truer for Being Bare

Frosty benches at Green Lake

“With frost again the thought is clear and wise

that rain made dismal with a mist’s despair,

the raw bleak earth beneath cloud-narrowed skies

finds new horizons in the naked air.

Light leaps along the lashes of the eyes;

a tree is truer for its being bare.

“So must the world seem keen and very bright

to one whose gaze is on the end of things,

who knows, past summer lush, brimmed autumn’s height,

no promise in the inevitable springs,

all stripped of shadow down to the bone of light,

the false songs gone and gone the restless wings.”
— John Hewitt, from The Poems of John Hewitt

from the blog Ancedotal Evidence

When, Exactly, Did Winter Arrive?

“It was hard to say when exactly winter arrived.  The decline was gradual, like that of a person into old age, inconspicuous from day to day until the season became an established, relentless reality.”
— Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel

Frost-lined leaves

“The winters come now as fast as snowflakes.”
— Henry David Thoreau, Journals, December 7, 1856

Today is the Winter Solstice, and I, for one, am thrilled that we have reached our darkest day and that daylight will begin to creep back slowly, lengthening our days.  I will try to foster a more romantic attitude to accompany this cold and dreary time:

“I see the winter approaching without much concern, though a passionate lover of fine weather, and the pleasant scenes of summer, but the long evenings have their comforts too, and there is hardly to be found upon earth, I suppose, so snug a creature as an Englishman by the fireside in the winter.”
— William Cowper

Jello Mold Farm in Winter

Fuchsia-colored snowberries with a dusting of frost

The winter flower beds at Jello Mold Farm were a full palette of browns.  These fuchsia-colored snowberries were an exception.  Here are some other gems from my stroll through the flower beds:

Snowberries

Bowed seed head of sunflower

Shriveled rose hips

Spiky artichoke

These artichoke leaves fall in a lovely cascade.

Desiccated Chinese lanterns

Frosty ornamental cabbages under netting

Chestnut in hand

Chestnut cluster on tree

Decomposing squash

These broken gourds look like broken dinosaur eggs!

 

A Visit to a Flower Farm in Winter

Jello Mold Farm

Jello molds decorate one of the garden sheds at Jello Mold Farm.

This weekend I returned to Jello Mold Farm in the Skagit Valley to see what a flower farm looks like in winter.  It is very much the dormant season, with the fields at rest.  But that doesn’t mean rest for the farmers!  Dennis was out making compost, and Diane was busy with her work spreading support for sustainable flower growing practices among local and regional growers.

Diane and Jello Mold Farm were recently featured on an episode of PBS’s “Growing a Greener World.”  I urge you watch the broadcast.  It’s a great introduction to the practice of local, seasonal, sustainable flower growing, and you’ll “meet” Diane, whose enthusiasm and passion for her work are infectious.  The episode  showcases some beautiful scenes from Jello Mold Farm during the summer when the gardens are a riot of color.

Winter at Jello Mold Farm has its own kind of beauty.  The palette is more subtle.  I’ll be sharing more photos from my visit in the next few days.  Here are a few to set the stage:

Droplets of melting frost sparkle on some netting over a flower bed-- enchanting!

View of snow-capped Mount Baker from Jello Mold Farm

Bed of sunflower stalks

Robin in corkscrew willow. I like how the branches frame the bird's silhouette.

Greenhouse, garden stakes, and chair

Roll of netting seen through the greenhouse plastic

Straw-covered flower beds

Bucket of string, ready for the new season

Garden stake

Plant starts through a greenhouse window