There Is A New Visitor In The Woods

Transitions come slowly…day by day…month by month…year by year.  The seasons merge as do the years, one into another.

The woods are quiet now and throughout  the woods, vacant nests sit lonely on barren branches.  The newly arrived winter visitors  take up residence in some of these abandoned nests.

Several weeks ago at dusk, I was pleased to meet a new visitor to the woods,  as he swooped down silently  through the trees.  The Great Horned Owl arrives in our woods shortly after the migrating hawks leave  and takes up residence in the empty nest  of the Red Tail Hawk.  Little refurbishment is done other than an accidently placed feather or two, and it is touch and go as to whether the dilapidated house will survive the winter winds.  It certainly will not be  acceptable to the returning Red Tail come April, without major spring renovations. 

Promises and times of preparation come early in life but fade with the coming years.  One finds that which we loved in our youth,  is forgotten.  What we believed to be the only way…we are not so sure about anymore.  We wish our lost passions could stir us up again.  What surprises come along, are most welcome; they are like treasures and we savour them.  Our beliefs become simpler but deeper…filling.

A young, greatly gifted  and passionate Joni Mitchell sings:

Rows and flows of angel hair

And ice cream castles in the air

And feathered canyons everywhere.

I’ve looked at clouds that way.

But now they only block the sun

And they rain and they snow on everyone.

So many things I would have done

But clouds got in my way.

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down, still somehow

It’s cloud illusions I recall

I really don’t know clouds at all…

 

 

Thirty years later she sings the same song after so much living, with ups and downs,

give and take, win and lose…with so much deepness that only comes with time.