“Continuum theories or models explain variation as involving a gradual quantitative transition without abrupt changes or discontinuities. It can be contrasted with ‘categorical’ models which propose qualitatively different states.”
While in our minds Spring may feel like an event, it is, in fact, part of the continuum of the Earth’s response to its proximity to the Sun. Subtle changes occurring at the cellular level as the minutes of daylight increase.
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After a long, snowy, icy, snowy, cold, snowy Winter (did I say snowy?) it’s finally and officially Spring. A new season, new beginnings and a time to begin gardening and blogging again.
If I had to choose one word for this season it would be “wonder.” Wonder at the resilient little green shoots popping up from the frozen ground, wonder at the diversity and symmetrical perfection of each new blossom, wonder at their array of colors.
And so, to begin this season of wonder, a fabulous pink and white tulip from the just ended Spring Bulb Show at the Lyman Conservatory at Smith College. And, beneath that, a piece by Rachel Carson from her book The Sense of Wonder.
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A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the source of our strength.
Rachel Carson
The Sense of Wonder
As much as we’d like to believe otherwise, our “harried days” are no different now than they were for our great-great-grandparents 100 years ago. While the details of daily life might have changed, it’s still, just as it was 100 years ago, our own perspectives that makes our lives seem harried or exciting, mind-numbing or thoughtful.
“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Fuller's Teasel - Frosty Treble Clef
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So, just for a moment, I remember to step back into the garden. There’s not much there right now for those of us in the North, but there’s enough to remind us of another pace.
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“We are the same as plants, as trees, as other people, as the rain that falls. We consist of that which is around us, we are the same as everything.”
Buddha
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Everything is Energy
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So if everything is everything, and everything is energy, where do, say, the petals of a flower end and where does light begin?
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During the Spring and Summer months it’s easy to see beauty: trees are covered with newly sprouted leaves in an endless spectrum of greens; grasses, crops and garden plants are popping up at such a fast pace - we could probably see them grow if we would just stand still long enough; flowers are blossoming on trees and plants, both in our gardens and in the wild, in a vibrant array of colors.
But in the Fall, once the flowers have faded, and the almost all plants have withered from the cold temperatures and lack of light, and when the leaves have fallen from the trees, it seems more difficult to see beauty around us (…at least until the first snowfall!). Unless, of course, we re-think what beauty is and learn to see the world we thought we knew in different ways.
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Davinci's Vatruvian Man (source: Wikipedia)
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Consider first, as DaVinci and others have suggested, that one of the foundations of beauty is symmetry: “the imprecise sense of harmonious or aesthetically pleasing proportionality and balance such that it reflects beauty or perfection.” (Wikipedia) If that definition holds then, relying primarily on symmetry, and not flowers or vibrant colors, here are a couple of images of Fuller’s Teasel in the Fall – you can decide if they’re beautiful of not.
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Fuller's Teasel in the Fall
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Fuller's Teasel Leaf
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If they are, then maybe there’s life in our gardens (and along roadsidesand streams, and in fields…) after the first frost, and after the days are much shorter than the nights and after most everything has died back into dormancy for the Winter. Maybe there’s a different kind of beauty there just waiting for us to see it.
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This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
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