Coming Forth

As the snow retreats slowly, green grass is starting to appear here and there, and more swiftly so on exposed sunny slopes. The gnarly old McIntosh orchard on the hill is awakening from its long winter sleep and there are already dense sticky red buds on all the trees — it seems the apple trees are conjuring up another verdant summer and another rosy harvest.

This is one of my favorite places. In Spring, there are masses of sticky red buds on the trees and later a profusion of leaves and blossoms, followed by perfect juicy McIntosh apples in late September. In early morning and evening, there are dozens of deer grazing under the trees and searching for windfalls from the last harvest. In blossom time there is much happy buzzing among the blooms, and in June there will be bluebirds in abundance.

Over the winter, I had vivid dreams of walking barefoot through the orchard in a chorus of bluebirds under a canopy of apple blossoms — those dreams kept me going when the snow was deep, temperatures plummeted, and the wind howled in the eaves. Now I sit with my back against an old apple tree and raise my face to the good Spring sunshine, in the wise words of Clarissa Pinkola Estes, "lifting my heart toward heaven like a hungry beggar".