Do not fear the Ides of March
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
Photo by Margaret Swedish - spring melt on Lake Michigan
With all the bad news, today I want to celebrate Spring — because it surely is coming. We bask in glorious sunshine and warmer temps today, knowing that March still has plenty of roar left in it. It is a month of great weather contrasts in this part of the world, and if you can’t get out and feel the exuberance of Nature at a time like this, then best get into some serious spiritual therapy.
Maybe our economic crisis will lead us back necessarily towards a life of less distraction, less alienation from our Earth-life, less unconsciousness of and insensitivity towards the damage to our beloved Gaia.
Because even in the photo meditation below, there is contradiction – the beauty and dynamism of Lake Michigan as it goes through this annual rite of transformation mixed in with the haze of smog as our winds begin to prevail more frequently now from the industrial south shore of Illinois and Indiana, along with the threats lurking below the surface from invasive species like quagga and zebra mussels, the destruction of the lake’s ecosystem from agricultural runoff, industrial waste, and toxic air.
That contrast, that contradiction, is simply part of our lives now and urges our commitment not just to sustainability — because I would hate to see us stop now and sustain this level of harm — but to regeneration, to standing back and allowing Nature to begin a process of re-creating itself into healthy, rich, naturally and spiritually dynamic ecosystems, the kind that can sustain this spiritually starved species through many more generations to come.
So below are my photos of contrast, Late Winter and Early Spring on Lake Michigan, the frozen lake and the melting lake, the turning of the seasons.
Life is not linear, we do not go from here to there, from here to eternity, from a first location to a last destination, from original sin to personal salvation. Like the Earth itself Life is circular and cyclical, it returns again and again to both the origin and the destination, because they are the same point and they are never the same point.
Got that? Physics tells us this. Our bodies tell us this. Our deep consciousness tells us this. We are part and expression of this vast dynamism of flux and change, this dance of Creation.
This is why I love living in north country, for the seasons of change, for the extremes of flux and fluctuation, for the reminder that everything is now and always will be in a state of change and transformation — no matter how hard we westerners try to nail it down and hold it in place.
Isn’t that what life is teaching us right now in any case?
One other thing as you view the photos – the dates they were taken are separated by a mere 16 days!!! – Feb. 28, Mar. 2 after our surprise 14-inch lake effect snow storm, and the others today, on the Ides of March.
No, I do not fear the ides of March, I celebrate them!
Photo by Margaret Swedish, Feb. 28 2009
Photo by Margaret Swedish - Lake Michigan, Feb. 28 2009
Photo by Margaret Swedish, Lk. Michigan shore Mar 2 2009
Photo by Margaret Swedish - Lake Michigan Mar 2 09
Photo by Margaret Swedish - Lake Michigan/Milwaukee Mar 15 09
Photo by Margaret Swedish - Lake Michigan shore Mar 15 09
Photo by Margaret Swedish - Lake Michigan shore Mar 15 09
