On the Spring Melt

As spring approaches and  

vestiges of snow melt away, 

the changing seasons of our  

earth reflect the changing  

climate of our lives and the  

events around us. With the  

end of winter, flooding is  

ubiquitous, vegetation begins  

to grow, and the earthy  

petrichor scent of nature  

returns to the air. This early  

spring is a transitionary period  

in which many of the trees are  

still bare and temperatures  

fluctuate. It is a season of anticipation for the full bloom of spring and the warmth of summer. 

Spring seems to come earlier and earlier each year. Snow stays aground for shorter periods and the air grows warmer sooner. It's the reality of the warming of our planet but it's also a  symptom of our age. As each year passes, it marks a smaller portion of our lives than the  last did. As children, a year in our lives was a long spell, distinct from the rest, occupying  much of the brief life to that point. Now, we have lived enough years, seen the seasons  change enough times, that it's no longer novel and it passes quicker each time.  

The Ojibwe Cree people of northern Ontario associate the spring melt with rebirth and  renewal as the animals come out of hibernation. They also use it as a time for letting go of  things from the winter and year past. Slavic folk culture associates the spring melt with the  annual death of the goddess Morana who is the reborn into a different goddess of spring,  representing the opportunity for farming and celebrations to begin. 

As the poplar buds shoot from their branches and the geese return from their migration,  the changing ecology of the world around us walks in concert with our lives in constant  transition. At this young age, people will move houses more often than any other point in 

their lives, switch jobs, or even change their life goals. Many students are in the process of  self-discovery during university and graduate as a different person than when they started  their first year.  

Similarly shifting but on a larger scale, entire nations are changing before our eyes. The  United States Government continues to regress into a cult of incompetency. In the wake of  the kidnapping of Mahmoud Khalil, it seems the leader of the free world is beginning a new  chapter of oppression. Canada’s historical alliance with America is in jeopardy for the first  time in the lives of their citizens. Europe stands poised to shift further into right wing policy in a year full of elections. Our own nation has a new leader and faces an era-defining  federal election this summer. Predicting the future of the global political landscape is  unreliable, which stands in contrast to the decades of stability and peace of the recent  past. 

While everything around you is in flux, take a moment to stop and focus on the current.  While winter offers beauty of its own with snow and evergreens, it resigns people to admire  just that. Spring opens nature up again for the enjoyment of the people.  

Perform this exercise now that the snow melt allows it. Go somewhere green and isolated,  kneel and look at the ground. Take in the details of the grasses, leaves, and soil. Again, look  closer, this time you will see the lichens and mosses weaving between the grass. They take  

on strange shapes like pixie cups and antennae. Look even closer once more until you  cannot focus your eyes on a smaller subject, lay face down and dive into the minutiae of  the natural world. This time you will see each grain of soil along with the insects and other  tiny creatures that travel amongst them. Mites will climb up the rhizoids of mosses like  squirrels to trees, and lichens sit like shrubs amongst the towering grasses. What's  revealed is a microcosm of an active forest the size of a bottle cap.  

Often, in our haste to catch up with all that is changing, little time is taken for close  inspection of nature and so few people see these intricate worlds they walk over each day. This close inspection could and should be extrapolated to other things in life, there is  always an opportunity to look closer and slow down in a world that values moving on to the  next new thing. 

- “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit,  and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” 

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden