Zadie Byrd’s Antler Find
Within the grip of winter, it is almost impossible to imagine the spring. The gray perished landscape is shorn of color. Only bleakness meets the eye; everything seems severe and edged. Winter is the oldest season; it has some quality of the absolute. Yet beneath the surface of winter, the miracle of spring is already in preparation; the cold is relenting; seeds are wakening up. Colors are beginning to imagine how they will return. Then, imperceptibly, somewhere one bud opens and the symphony of renewal is no longer reversible. From the black heart of winter a miraculous, breathing plenitude of color emerges.
The beauty of nature insists on taking its time. Everything is prepared. Nothing is rushed. The rhythm of emergence is a gradual slow beat always inching its way forward; change remains faithful to itself until the new unfolds in the full confidence of true arrival. Because nothing is abrupt, the beginning of spring nearly always catches us unawares. It is there before we see it; and then we can look nowhere without seeing it. John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings
This first full day of Spring after yesterday’s equinox, finds my heart a bit heavy. A different sort of Spring beginning for me and for Zadie Byrd. Yesterday she crossed the rainbow bridge. Life anew without the bounds of a physical body for her. Waking to quiet, an empty blanket by the wood stove. Freedom. A different flavor for each of us.
This, a day of reflection, of gratitude, of tears I’ll simply share a favorite Mary Oliver Poem about our beloved canine companions, knowing there is no ‘us’ and ‘them’ in this soup we call life and that we are mere cells of Gaia’s greater whole. We are all different. We are all the same.
How It Is With Us, and
How It Is With Them
by Mary Oliver
We become religious,
then we turn from it,
then we are in need and maybe we turn back.
We turn to making money,
then we turn to the moral life,
then we think about money again.
We meet wonderful people, but lose them
in our busyness.
We’re, as the saying goes, all over the place.
Steadfastness, it seems,
is more about dogs than about us.
One of the reasons we like them so much.
In loving memory of and deep gratitude for Sadie/Zadie Byrd/Zades/’Punkin Soup’ – 6 December 2009 – 19 March 2024. Steadfast with a streak of stubborn. Courageous. Teacher. Learner. Partner. Soul friend. And more. With me from 14 January 2020 – 19 March 2024 and furever in my heart with forever love and gratitude.
New Cap on an Empty Blanket