Mama Says Om - Sex

We are finally on our way into the green heart of springtime, and all nature seems to be preoccupied with sex and proliferation now, with the continuation of multitudinous species and the proliferation of their genes.

For several days I have been watching sparrows, starlings, blackbirds and various finches flying to and fro with bits of string, birch bark and plant fibres in their beaks, all focused with clear and present intention on sex, fertility, the making of nests and the raising up of tribe and family.

The fuzzy brood raised by a pair of Great Horned Owls in the old oak tree on the Two Hundred Acre Wood in Lanark are adolescents now, but the birds with whom they share the forest (and which form the main part of their diet) are building their own nests and creating stable and secure nurseries in which to raise their own broods.

In springtime, the Green Man is abroad in the landscape, and nature is a lusty being indeed. When I think of greening, fertility and sex (as one inevitably does in springtime), it is the Greater Canadas who come to mind, because I see the great geese everywhere I look - their stately elegant presences and their nests adorn almost every field and hollow. My favorite birds (along with the herons) are lifelong mates, and they are splendid parents. Goose and gander care for one another, tend the nest and nurture the goslings when they hatch. In late summer, there are flotillas of geese on all the local waterways looking like toy trains and pull toys: the proud mother goose in the lead, her goslings swimming along behind her one after the other with their heads bobbing, the father goose at the rear, keeping a watchful eye out for avian predators and snapping turtles.

The deer (of course) do things a little differently - they perform their antler dances and courting rites in late autumn, and their delicately freckled fawns will be making their first appearances in the fields of the Lanark Highlands any day now.

Such springtime scenes are vivid reminders of my younger days, and they make for much musing about our own human courting rites and nesting endeavours, as generally defined by the cultures into which we were born (in this lifetime anyway).

Written for the beauteous and ever blooming mamas who tend their flocks, the spirit of mindfulness, compassion and the creative flame at Mama Says Om.