A few hours before dawn the other day, I woke to find the waning moon wearing the light of the sun like a jewel. It hung above the eastern horizon, sunlight painting a sliver of its darkened face bright and hot in the dawn sky, Jupiter and Saturn quietly looking on.
In the fog of sleepiness, it’s easy to think we are still, unmoving; that the stars and planets revolve around us. But that fiery slash of sun in the dark is proof upon waking that we are all a-tumble in the sky; ancient inertia from the birth of the cosmos still giving us a shove.
Tomorrow sun and earth will move into the vernal equinox. This marks the beginning and end, light and dark, sleeping and waking. It is the harbinger of spring whispering to roots and dormant seeds, to birds and bees.
But as I write this today, the dusting of last night’s snow has crusted over to ice. Wind whips the trees about as birds struggle to gain purchase at the feeders. The big birds showed up: grackles and crows, bluejays and woodpeckers; even a few red-winged blackbird couples.
In the garden, signs of waking appear. Seedlings wink like green eyes from the soil. Buds begin to form, their Fibonacci sequence a secret for now.
Soon the garden will be alive with color.
Miracles in the sky, miracles in the soil.