Hey dear reader,
The earth is awash with green growth now, a time I call the greening. A magical time in May when all the new growth emerges, painting the landscape light greens.
In a previous letter, I wrote about how the earth was just waking up from the long sleep of winter but today, it’s more of a cacophony of growth. We are awake and wide eyed. The trees are in leaf, ferns are unfurling and I’ve officially dived into a fresh water lake under a hazy twilight sky, an early summer ritual.
Each season, I tell myself “this is my favourite time of year” but ultimately, I think the true beginning of summer is my most beloved. The magic is undeniable, new growth and plants weaves a delightful spell, all to the soundtrack of birdsong, loon calls and peepers. The wind is suddenly a gentle, needed companion rather than a bitter foe. And the sun… after 6 months of winter, the sun is pure life energy.
There are points on the calendar year that are more potent with dramatic changes than others and this is firmly one of those times (I think of it as being from Canada as May/August/November/February - in line with Bealtaine, Lughnasah, Samhaine, Imbolc) Seasonal Cyclical magic teaches us again and again that the best things in life are free and rooted in just being and observing. And that magic unfurls right before our eyes, every day.
It’s in the ordinariness of seasons. And yet still, it feels like magic every year, fleeting and liminal.
And so, to catch this fleeting time, I try to bottle it up the only way I know how to: gardening, food and drink and being with nature. A lot of attention is directed toward my small garden. After a few years, I’ve hand dug all the goutweed and fenced in a space on a hillside so that I can still garden. This process, digging and picking out every last root of goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria) to reclaim a space to grow sage, tomatoes, dill, potatoes has been very meaningful to me.
Seasonal food and drink help reinvigorate us after a long winter. Here in Atlantic Canada, we have a delicious food that is only available in May: Fiddleheads. These are the furled fronds of the Ostrich Fern and have been harvested in the Spring in this part of the world for thousands of years by the Indigenous peoples. Every year, it’s one of my highlight to make a lemon, garlic pasta loaded with fiddleheads.
They are SO delicious and very nutritious - packed with antioxidants, vitamin C & A, potassium, iron and B vitamins. It truly feels like you’re receiving a fresh dose of healing medicine from the forest floor. In addition, mint and chives from the garden are incorporated in our diet, tying us back to the soil right beneath our feet.
This morning, we got up early to drive to our little forest property. Only an hour drive from where we live, it is a whole zone apart from us and the progress of the season was noticeably behind. There is a turn off on the secondary highway where you lose the flow of traffic, as you drive along winding roads, following a meandering river.
Today, the mist was slowly and subtly shape shifting above the glassy river, like a spirit. Such a perfect analogy for the greening, beautiful, alive but oh so fleeting. Try to reach out and catch it, for it slips beyond your grasp, but that only makes the experience more special.
The forest floor is dense with different types of moss but spreading throughout like a fairy carpet were threeleaf goldthread, bunchberry, northern starflower and different types of ferns. We only have a brief period of time with this exposed forest floor before the canopy thickens and casts a dense shadow.
Cyclical magic can serve as a reminder that life isn’t about chasing the next thing - but rather simply experiencing fleeting moments like the first cold swim, seasonal foods or gardening before the chaos sets in.
Thank you for joining me once again, here in this quiet carved out space on the internet. I hope so much that you are taking moments truly for yourself during the powerful shift in the season.
☾ Thank you for being here.
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