Musings on celebration, the natural world, and connection…

Recently cleared around bridge over an old culvert, Dorothea Quarry

So here we are – on the equinox. In truth, I had forgotten that this day actually is the equinox as we will be celebrating on Saturday. Yet somewhere deep inside, I must have felt the pull – of the new season waiting to burst out: Even though looks can be decieving, especially with how the weather has been recently!

After clinic, I felt compelled to go for a walk – as usual for me, down to the quarry. No wild violets or fresh dandelion flowers for me yet; instead, winter fungi, bare dead wood, and mud. Spring is a coming in… but its a bit late.

Thoughts of celebration came to mind. How people celebrate the seasons as they can – but in some ways I do so every day – in some ways my life isn’t just inextricably linked to the seasons – it is almost bound by them. But do I extract enough meaning from that interaction?

Someone working 9-5 in a shop or an office may only have fleeting encounters with the natural world. If I was working those hours in that environment, our ritual on Saturday might be my only chance for a couple of weeks to have that kind of interaction with the natural world.

Yet with the herbal medicine practice and dispensary, I have that opportunity daily if I want it. Sometimes – often – I have it, but I am too tired to fully engage. Or I am too distracted by other concerns.

So do I value it any less? I would be mortified to think that could be the case; that familiarity might have bred contempt. But the fact that I am even thinking along those lines means, even if only in a small way, there is truth to that assertion.

The shock with which I come to that assertion also tells me that the contempt bred of familiarity is only at play in a very small way, and like an emotionally absent husband gripping his wife’s hand upon realising he had forgot to consider her, I came crashing to the realisation; I do love what I do, but also the way in which I do it and the connection to nature and the living, growing world that goes with it.

In part, I do need to extract more meaning – but it would be better to say; ‘I need to co-creatively make meaning and share that co-creation with the nature I work – and worship – in. That is my lesson, and my gift for and from this springtime season.