From My Nature Journal: A Bloom for the Season

It's called a pasqueflower, a lovely of the high plains, mountain states and north.

Among the very first wildflowers of spring when we lived in the foothills of Colorado, pasqueflowers sometimes even pushed up through snowcover. I took this photo in very early spring some time back. As a cold weather flower, they tend to stay close to the ground, about six inches tall, and often can be found as in this photo in drier, rocky areas that hold the warmth of the late winter sun.

Sometimes confused with tulips, it’s also called the Prairie Crocus, May Day Flower, and appropriately, Easter Flower: those of you who perceive the etymology of words might have guessed the latter. Pasque comes from paschal: ‘of, or relating to, Easter or Passover.’ Picking up on the symbolism within the Jewish celebration of Passover, where a lamb’s blood protected the Hebrew people from the ravages of death (see Exodus 12), Jesus, in 1 Corinthians 5:7, is referred to as our Passover, or paschal, lamb. Though there are other flowers also associated with the blood of Christ (the Rose and Bleeding Heart among them), the Pasqueflower is associated with Easter by the timing of the season.

And so, with those redeemed of Christ throughout nearly two millennia, we pray: 

O Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.

O Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.

O Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, grant us Your peace.

Interestingly, though the plant is full of toxins, its derivatives can be used medicinally for birthing/labor issues and certain vision impairments. These uses offer all kinds of possibilities for further spiritual symbolisms, connecting Easter life to our circumstances, if we wanted to go that route.

Finally, kudos to the State of South Dakota and the Canadian Province of Manitoba, both of which had the creative presence of mind to name the Pasqueflower their state/provincial bloom, though known there by different names.

~~ RGM, March 31 2021

From My Nature Journal: A Bloom for the Season

It’s called a Pasqueflower, a lovely of the high plains, mountain states and north.

Among the very first wildflowers of spring here in the foothills of Colorado, pasqueflowers sometimes even push up through light snowcover. And though I haven’t seen one yet this year, I took this photo in very early spring some time back. As a cold weather flower, they tend to stay close to the ground, about six inches tall, and often can be found as in this photo in drier, rocky areas that hold the warmth of the late winter sun.

Sometimes confused with tulips, it’s also called the Prairie Crocus, May Day Flower, and appropriately, Easter Flower: those of you who perceive the etymology of words might have guessed the latter. Pasque comes from paschal: ‘of, or relating to, Easter or Passover.’ Picking up on the symbolism within the Jewish celebration of Passover, where a lamb’s blood protected the Hebrew people from the ravages of death (see Exodus 12), Jesus, in 1 Corinthians 5:7, is referred to as our Passover, or paschal, lamb. Though there are other flowers also associated with the blood of Christ (the Rose and Bleeding Heart among them), the Pasqueflower is associated with Easter by the timing of the season.

And so, with those redeemed of Christ throughout nearly one and a half millennia, we pray:

O Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.

O Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.

O Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, grant us Your peace.

Interestingly, though the plant is full of toxins, its derivatives can be used medicinally for birthing/labor issues and certain vision impairments. These uses offer all kinds of possibilities for further spiritual symbolisms, connecting Easter life to our circumstances, if we wanted to go that route.

Finally, kudos to the State of South Dakota and the Canadian Province of Manitoba, both of which had the creative presence of mind to name the Pasqueflower their state/provincial bloom, though known there by different names.

~~RGM, From a Past Entry in my

Journal and on my Blog

From My Nature Journal: Thresholds

(Note: This essay goes back several years to the time Gail and I lived in Castle Rock, Colorado. With an apology that it will be awhile before my loved ones in the north country have this experience, and just as Groundhog Day and dreams of spring in early February seemed absolutely ridiculous to me when I lived in Minnesota, the following happened to me in a February, so I share it now.)

I smelled it today, and it wafted in more welcome than the sweetest perfume.

As I got out of the car on my way to a morning appointment, I caught a whiff -- that moist, earthy scent -- spring! It transported me quickly back in time to my Chicago roots. Common in the Midwest, the scent is not something one senses very often here in Colorado, what with the dry climate and all, but it was a remarkable sensation as I experienced it. I closed my eyes and mouth and breathed in deeply.

Late winter is a threshold, at least in climates where winter is truly a force with which to be reckoned. One day it is cold, and the ground seems locked in the vice-hold of the season. The next day something happens. You catch this sensation and something is born in your spirit: a threshold is crossed. The first harbingers of spring can be likened to what medieval Celtic Christians called ‘thin places,’ a fleeting moment when heaven and earth commingle, when death and life mix, or, for our purpose here, when spring becomes the proverbial cat that will not let winter stuff it back in the bag.

John O’ Donohue says of this threshold: “Within the grip of winter it is almost impossible to imagine the spring… Then, imperceptibly, somewhere, one bud opens and the symphony of renewal is no longer reversible… It is there before we see it, and then we can look nowhere without seeing it…”

Even if one loves the winter months as I do, eventually one still looks forward to spring: wildflowers, rain, garden blooms, t-shirt warmth, thunderstorms, going barefoot outside, and baseball! But even as one begins to long for spring, its coming still almost always catches us by surprise, unawares, forgetful that it was getting to be about the time for such a thing.

We don’t wake up in the morning thinking, “Gee, I

wonder if I’ll get my first inkling of spring today…”

We don’t wake up in the morning thinking, “Gee, I wonder if I’ll get my first inkling of spring today…”

If we might only pay better attention we’d find our days full of these kinds of thresholds, portents of change, but they usually catch us snoozing. Yet when they catch us fully awake, one moment we see things a certain way and then it’s as a filter is newly placed over our eyes, and the experience causes us to see things very differently, sometimes diametrically so.

It’s a moment from a quiet place just off the Emmaus Road, and whether we like it or not, it has become time to cross over.

“…And their eyes were opened…” (Luke 24:31)

“Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.” (Isaiah 35:5)

“I pray that the eyes of your heart will be opened.” (Ephesians 1:18)

“Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. His eyes were opened, his sight was restored and he saw everything clearly.” (Mark 8:25)

~~ RGM, From an Old Entry

in My Nature Journal

From My Nature Journal: Soul Seasons

Lord of Creation, God of the universe,

You are not simply summer to my soul.

Yes, I do love You in the sensuousness of summer,

When leaves wax and fields are a riot of color and joy,

When Your sun warms my skin,

And Your cool water revives my strength,

And long days become a sabbath-season that allow space, grace and growth.

Yet I also love You in the melancholy of autumn,

When Your earth dies a blood-red blaze of glory

And trees rain back their yield to the ground,

When something in me saddens amid the late-season blessing,

And I come to terms with mortality and winter’s approach.

But I love You as well in the dead of winter,

When wind howls over barren earth

Both outside my window and sometimes inside my soul,

When the heart can freeze like ice, or can rest easy, asleep,

Like a garden, patiently waiting for Your beneficent, restoring touch.

Finally, I love You in the giddy burgeoning of springtime,

When quickened life bursts from somewhere deep and wonderful,

A resurrected earth mimicking a resurrected Lord,

And something also in me is embraced by resurrection,

As the cycle of life again begins its turning.

You are every season to my soul --

Summer, fall, winter, spring -- together.

You transcend them in a timeless time and space beyond Your good earth.

Grant me to walk fully awake through the seasons,

Never missing the slightest nuance of Your vast overture of love. Amen

~~ RGM, December 7, 2017 

From My Nature Journal: Hope Waits

This is our first spring in the state of Washington, and it is an understatement to say that our Pacific Northwest habitat has changed just a bit compared to our former Colorado digs. Here in Cascade land, green is ubiquitous year-round. Back in the Centennial State, winter brown will prevail into April.

So today, in Lenten reverie, I was thinking back to a memorable saunter this time of year. Gail was out of town visiting her folks. I had the day off and was out wandering the newly opened Ridgeline Trail system. It was a weekday morning on a not so nice day, so the paths were empty, the air chilly and the sky gray. At one point I left the trail and wandered back into a draw to see what I could see. In a quiet and secluded spot I crawled back under a scrub oak, lay down on my back and fell asleep. When I awoke, a very light rain had begun to fall, but I was sheltered enough to simply lie there for some time and think about spring and life and death and Lent and resurrection. After a few moments I pulled out a notepad and scribbled a few lines, which came together further later that evening in this:

hope waits

i lie beneath an overwintered scrub oak

            staring up through stark branches

            dead, brittle brown leaves

            clinging, gripping

            beneath leaden sky

death has held tight rein through

            storms and winds of winter

            how? death is strong, tenacious

yet below each stiff leaf stem is life

            life that will soon push out

            push death down, each leaf to earth

            where tree will nourish itself

            nourish its own growth by God’s grace

death is an illusion, mocked

            life triumphs, green

            hope waits

So, that’s where my thoughts have taken me this third week of Lent, and I thought I’d share this little piece with you for your blessing. I pray you might anticipate the life that God is yet to course through whatever dormancy you may be experiencing.

Hope waits!

And, oh, while I’ve got you, let me tell you about the humble Scrub Oak, since I always enjoy sharing a little nature lesson along the way. It’s also called Gambel Oak, Winter Oak, Oak Brush and White Oak, though it’s not the same as the majestic Eastern White Oak. It’s an unpretentious tree of the interior southwest, common to all the ‘Four Corners’ states, and tends to be rather slight, normally 10-30 feet. The Scrub Oak is ubiquitous in arid foothills at 3500-6500 feet elevation, and carries a stunted, gnarly look. Unlike most deciduous trees, it holds most of its dead leaves through the winter, thus the name Winter Oak; spring’s new axillary bud development below each brittle leaf stem finally push the previous year’s leaf right out of its sheath. Though small, the tree is still an important and accessible winter deer browse in any kind of snow, and can produce a prolific mast of acorns each year, a rich and welcome treat for squirrels and bears as well as the deer.

Get outside!

~~ RGM, March 24, 2017

From My Nature Journal: All From a Knock in the Head…

“Yowwww!?!!!”

I was walking in the Michigan woods last fall and, out of the blue (literally), something hit me in the head, hard! Looking to where I had heard whatever it was hit the ground and had seen in my peripheral vision something roll to a stop, I found a large, fresh acorn. Maybe a squirrel had just clipped it and let it drop (or aimed it -- I have had that happen to me before with pinecones!). But the oak above was large enough to impede my ability to spot any guilty party nearby. The knock really smarted, though, and I rubbed my head while wondering if it drew blood. The tip had a sharp point, and the nut may have hit me from that position.

Thinking of Isaac Newton under the proverbial apple tree, and the alleged falling orb by which he brilliantly began to deduce the force of gravity, I wondered if there was anything brilliant I was supposed to construe from this occurrence -- besides perhaps wearing a hat when I walk under oak trees in the fall, or avoiding proximity to coconut trees altogether. So it set me to thinking. Why, indeed, do some trees produce large seeds like this, and others produce tiny, wispy ones that float on the breeze? And what is their essential difference? I decided to do a little research, and here is what I found.

In general, trees produce one of two kinds of seed: one has enough substance to give the potential plant some resources with which it can get its start in life, so to speak, and the other kind does not. Rather, the latter’s seed is released to find its own resources if it can. Interestingly, the tree that produces the first kind expends so much energy preparing a seed with its own resources that it doesn’t produce many seeds; conversely, the tree that produces the second kind, expending so much less energy preparing its seed, can release them by the millions. As Bernd Heinrich says in his book The Trees in My Forest, “A tree has only so much to give… It can either have millions of seeds, each with a tiny inheritance… or relatively few seeds, each endowed with a large inheritance.”

Cases in point: my assaulting oak compared with the ubiquitous aspen. The oak produces a limited number of acorns, dropping them in the fall with, of course, the assistance of squirrels. All nut trees, oaks included (and coconuts!), are of the first kind mentioned above: the entire seed contains enough resources to get it started even on a less-than-perfect patch of ground, even in the shade. By contrast, an aspen releases millions of cottony tufts to the wind, each carrying a seed so small it can hardly be seen. One can brush against my face when it flies in May and I likely may not even feel it, yet the ground might be covered in the down. Each aspen tuft and seed drifts randomly in the rare hope of landing on some hospitable piece of real estate, the one with the most suitable depth and health of soil, the most advantageous amount of sunshine and most suitable quantity of moisture to thrive. Infinitesimally few are so lucky, for, on

Aspen seeds

average, perhaps only one of the seeds a mature aspen releases in its lifetime will grow to fully replace it. (Think averages. If this were not true, northern climes would be covered with nothing but aspens.) Luckily, aspens have another thing going for them by which they are far more successful in their reproductive efforts: most aspens grow from shoots sent underground by a parent plant, and are thus clones of the original. It’s what allows aspens to be the first up after a blowdown, fire or clearcut, without having to wait for a parent tree to release its seed.

But I also found some other interesting things. For example, I wondered how oaks reproduce successfully if animals eat all their acorns. After all, they are a favorite of bear, deer, jays, squirrels and others. I knew, of course, that one of the ways is that squirrels forget (or don’t quite get back to) all the places they’ve buried their stores, and those left behind often sprout, with gratitude for the convenient planting. But in addition to this, I found that nut bearing trees don’t produce every year, and after producing very well can go for several seasons with no crop; this gives them a better chance of eventually sneaking in some seeds that don’t get eaten, while the animal, who has been used to feasting there each season, turns up empty a year or two and writes the tree off his to-do list. I thought that was pretty wonderful.

Of course, thinking about these things leads me naturally to think of Jesus’ parables of the good soil (Luke 8:4-18) or the mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-32). Each of these texts would offer me much to consider if I spun them awhile through my cranium. But the concept most clear and dear to me from this musing is a takeoff on his little parable of the dying kernel in John 12:24, “…Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit…” We humans die as a seed, but of the first kind, like the acorn – with all the resources having been made available while we lived that would be necessary for us to sprout and live fruitfully again, even forever. The only difference is that we need to have realized and taken advantage of it.

Hmmm, all from a knock on the head…

~~RGM, May 12, 2016