This Huge Nest Called Earth

Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.  

–William Wordsworth

Last weekend I was off the internet for three and a half days, and I feel ridiculous for even saying that like it’s some big deal, since I have lived two-thirds of my life on Earth without that technology.  (And having lived two-thirds of my life without it, I can honestly proclaim that the internet is a-mazing!)  I didn’t miss it; though along with not having tv, I did have a slight feeling of missing out on what was going on in the world.  But since most of what’s on the news right now gives me a sinking feeling in my stomach, I was better off not knowing.  So what did I do?  I visited with my Mom who came for the weekend.  I cooked food for our Easter celebration.  I laughed with my family around the dinner table.  I read a little bit of the Sunday paper.  And we all went outside to hike, to take pictures, to walk the dog, to bask in the warm sunshine on a wind-cooled day, and to revel in the emerging signs of Spring.

We hiked at our nearby Eagle Park and were disappointed when we saw no movement of gray fluff or adult guardian in the huge eagle’s nest—the second of three years now with no viable eaglets.  We wondered whether it was the age of the parent eagles or if the nearby Sauk River food source was contaminated with something that interfered with the egg development.  (Happily, the other nearby eagle’s nest did have a couple of gray fluffy babies and a watchful parent.)  The bright-light sunshine cast shadows on the tomb-size boulders scattered throughout the park.

A clump of Pasque flowers, also called Easter flower and prairie crocus, bloomed along the trail.

Golden stands of last year’s prairie grasses waved in the wind with hints of green growing up between them.

Nodding heads of Prairie Smoke flower buds hung from early Spring foliage.

We saw the first Bluebird of Spring at Eagle Park, then later delighted that our pair had returned to the yard to check out the houses Chris hastily put up.

Our Spring crocuses were an absolute sight for sore eyes, a shocking display of regal purple, pure white, and purple striped color after a winter of gray, white, and brown.  I couldn’t help but smile and marvel at the sight of them!

Every year, as we come forth into the light of Spring, we are inundated with marvelous, amazing examples of creation, renewal, and transformation.  The old, golden grasses give way to the growing green.  The birds return to their northern breeding grounds and prepare for raising their young.  The miraculous perennials push through the chilly soil for another year of growth and flowering and bearing fruit.  We are just another part of Nature’s transforming miracle.  We are Easter people.  We come together with family and friends.  We prepare nourishing food to share with one another.  We commune around the table with prayer, talk, and laughter.  And then we are drawn outside to commune with Nature, with that from which we come and whom sustains us.  In September of 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a bill establishing the Assateague Island Seashore National Park with these words, “If future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than sorrow, we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology.  We must also leave them a glimpse of the world as God really made it, not just as it looked when we got through with it.”  Through the miracle of the internet, I commission all of us to become guardians of our little parts of this huge nest called Earth.  Happy Earth Day to us all!