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“Season” might actually be a verb. Here near the banks of the Potomac as it wends its way between Maryland and West Virginia, the trees put forth bright pinpricks of color on filagree branches; green shoots dance upward amid clumps of dried grass; sunlight sharpens and dances on the water; finches flit and vibrate yellowly; ephemeral pools sing at night. All this activity is happening without any human will, effort, or manufacture. A verb has no heft or edges or boundaries, no definitions, nothing to grab. I do not know when spring began springing nor when it will cross into summering.

We hope you are nourished by Nan's words, and the words of the others whose quotes have been gathered for you in this Letter and in the Letters that have come to you each month, without fail, for 36 years.

The news flickering daily on our incessant screens is nearly always heartbreaking, but last week’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was particularly excruciating because it concerned everyone and everything we love.  The IPCC found that Earth will cross a critical threshold for global warming within the next decade. The continued use of fossil fuels is dooming any possibility of slowing the warming of the planet.  The panel pleaded with industrialized nations to join together immediately to slash greenhouse gases roughly in half by 2030 and to stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere altogether by the early 2050s.  If both these actions happened, said the panel, the Earth and her inhabitants would stand half a chance.

It’s the season of waiting, a thin time. The shadows along the river in the afternoon are long. The coral sun, tinged with gold, slants between the trunks of the sycamores and poplars.

Early in the new year some friends, who for a long time in the pre-pandemic world had met and worked together on leading retreats that touched on “nature and soul”, gathered on Zoom to contemplate a return to this work. The following reflection is based on what I shared as we began our meeting.

“Now let us welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.” This quote by Rainer Maria Rilke, with its echoes of wonder and unbridled anticipation, is appreciated by many of us. I have always liked it; though my enthusiasm for the expressed sentiment is curious, because the imperative to welcome all things is a fierce one. Rilke is also the poet who wrote, “Let everything happen to you; beauty and terror.”

In spring, as friends met under freshly greening branches, we thought of a retreat at Rolling Ridge, “Returning to Holy Ground.” We dared to imagine a group gathered once again within the Meditation Shelter for ceremony and council, camping in the early autumn woods, and lodging for two nights in the shared cabin where simple meals might be prepared and eaten together. We thought of beautiful questions that might arise from a time of pandemic during which many were apprenticed to loss, sorrow, uncertainty, and perhaps to unexpected angels. What has been true for us? What have we learned? And what, now, do we hold in our open hands?

A season of dappled light followed, drenched in the sun’s bright rays. Around my home in Shepherd Village a landscape of wildish native plants blossomed: delicate pink milkweed, bright suns of coreopsis, bold coneflowers, spikes of lavender beardtongue, vibrant blue delphiniums in a riot of happy color.

As February slid toward March, the harsh grip of winter tightened. It snowed, and snowed some more. Fierce winds thrashed the oak and fir trees around my new home, a cohousing village community built not long ago on the edge of an old and vibrant small town. To the south of the circular cluster of duplex and triplex homes that make up the community there is a field where cows graze when the snow melts. On the east we have a tiny forest preserve lovingly salvaged from the construction perimeter. This is where I sometimes take a slow walk. I am barely beginning to know this place.

Not far from here is the mountain whose familiar trails, contours, and inhabitants I have cherished. Rolling Ridge is where I lived, closely with friends, for many years; and where now, I visit.

Ah, Grief, I should not treat you

It was hot, a rainless time.  The stick weed and wine berries wilted among the straw grasses. The creek beds were scatterings of tumbled stones.  In the garden, Kate watered, and watered again.  The hard soil seemed to repel the moisture.  Several times a day the forest reverberated with the sound of a tree branch cracking and falling.  Everything was brittle.

On the Schoolhouse Trail I passed an old tree with a craggy opening near the forest floor, an intriguing portal to the Underworld.  Meanwhile, the serviceberries are out, their delicate creamy blossoms like fallen stars in the woods.  Serviceberries are so named because they bloom at the time when the ground softens after the winter freeze thus readying the earth for burials and making services of parting and remembrance possible.  Gray fog is wrapping itself around the high, still bare branches, shrouding the tree tops.  So much is about fog and loss and descent.  Collectively we have fallen out of a world we thought—even worried—was immutable.  Mystery cloaks what comes next, what the eyes of the future see.  What do we do now?