Still no camera (I'll retrieve it when I go into the city tomorrow), but G is clamoring from Southeast Asia for evidence of incipient spring in our garden so the iphone will have to do. (I'm actually impressed with the quality.)It's been nothing but rain rain rain for the last several days, though things have cleared up somewhat now and the bugs have already begun their relentless onslaught. Lots of new life is unfurling. Today I will venture into the woods on my first foraging expedition of the season. I'm obsessed with finding ramps, morels, nettles and fiddleheads. Last year I had no luck, nor have I been able to find a mentor in the area. All I need is a little nudge in the right direction. Meanwhile, in my own backyard, many things are cropping up. In the damp, shady bed beneath our bedroom window, the lemon balm you see above (also known as melissa) is off to a good start. This wonderfully fragrant member of the mint family will be pressed into service all summer long for tea, to flavor panna cotta and in poultices for soothing bites and scratches.
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I don't care that there's snow on the ground and that more is predicted for tomorrow, I know what I saw this weekend, and I'm not backing down from thoughts of spring. I stepped out onto the front patio on Saturday night and basked in the glow of the super perigree moon, a rare sight that happens only every 18 years or so, when the moon is about 31,000 miles closer to Earth. On Saturday it was not only closer, but totally full, and about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than normal. It shed its monstrously beautiful silver light on me and I asked for its blessing, inspiration and guidance. Kooky? Perhaps. But that day, in honor of the equinox and this moon, G and I had already gone over to our new property in Forestburgh and had a little ceremony to bless the land and imbue it with good intentions. We have such high hopes; it felt good to say them out loud with the waterfall across the lake roaring in the distance and woodpeckers flitting high above in the trees.
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