Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The Clematis Are In Bloom! (And All The World Is New!)

I have blossomed precisely when I'm supposed to bloom. Plus I'm not the only thing blooming in Paradise Garden this springtime. Far from it!
      On this swiftly accelerating planet, the human species now approaches a shift so radical that we cannot predict what it will be. The fact is, we never can truly predict anything, because attempts to predict are based on the so-called "past" or memories. The truth is that nobody knows for sure what will happen--ever!
      We have entered strange and amazing times. I'm really neither a pessimist nor an optimist, which are both simplistic views. Still to err on the side of positive thinking makes more sense than not. Negativity is paralyzing and self-defeating, so as George Harrison suggested, "Beware of Darkness."
      Most evident to my senses and mind at this moment is the burgeoning green energy of spring--what the Welsh bard Dylan Thomas called "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower." Today birds still sing outside the house late in the afternoon beneath an overcast sky that has sent down a gentle drizzle off and on all day. Everything is somewhat moist outside.
      Most spectacular of all, I've counted no less than 28 clematis flowers opening huge, soft violet-colored stars amid the nandina shrubbery where the redbirds often nest just in front of the kitchen window. Based on the amount of seed that goes through the bird-feeders, and the birds that can be seen carrying around bits of bark or Spanish moss, plenty of baby birds are also on the way.
      Notice that last bit is also present tense! It's not a prediction.


      And yet the real lesson of living in Paradise Garden is not that Nature is cruel or kind--rather we live in a supportive Universe, and yet life comes with no guarantees. Nature is not tooth and claw or bloody jaws, though such things do happen. Most of the time everything is simply in the process of doing its best. Actually Nature works through cooperation, interdependence, and how totally connected everything is.
      All of the apparent dualities we get so hung up on point towards the deeper Oneness of things.
      Among the greatest gifts of my more reclusive, homebody lifestyle these days is a closer connection with all of the natural cycles of creation, sustaining, and regeneration.  I'm here most of the time working on my writing and artwork. I've come full-curcle to reunite with my creative self just as the year has come around to springtime again.
      I've got a great many manuscripts from those intense years of creative writing in Estes Park, Colorado and then down in Fort Collins. Presently my focus is to bring some of the best material forward into the light of day. These stories from my inner worlds emerge not unlike the abundance of clematis blossoms that appear from the roots and the DNA of their species to meet the lush world where birds chatter and a little waterfall splashes into the lily pond and the sun plays peekaboo.
      The publication of my novel Moontusk Book One: Rendezvous in a Ruined City is another such blossom.
      I'm always grateful to get out of my mind enough to appreciate these immediate daily wonders. Nobody can predict even the next moment for sure, so it's wise to count each breath a treasure, and consider each heartbeat a miracle.
      Every flower is a miraculous, unrepeatable treasure!