Equinox

Spring is always a time of renewal and the evolution of the seasons, but it’s also the equilibrium of life and death, the balance in which all suspends. Sometimes spring is indecisive, dabbling in all sorts of weather. It can feel like everything is hanging by a thread.

But neutrality isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s worthwhile to remain the observer, watching the world play out in all its passions and conflicts. This is spring’s wisdom. Caught between winter’s cold aloofness and summer’s ardent heat, spring stays open and perceptive, allowing balance to unfold.

Just before last spring, I walked the Duck Lake trail with my mom and stepdad and found many instances of budding life as well as lingering death. The equilibrium that evolves during this time is powerful and shows that nature is indeed symmetrical in its instinctive ways. This is how life is meant to be.

To keep up the unspoken tradition, I went again to Duck Lake a few weeks ago to admire its wildness on a stunningly cloudy day. It was the perfect time to explore the growth occurring as the seasons tilt to spring.

We encountered quite a few different individuals on our walk – “interesting characters”, as my grandfather would say. Clever coyotes slinking through the beige fields; trickster ravens wheeling overhead, jeering at each other; geese, flying in feathered arrows and settling on the pastures around the path; brilliantly white swans talking in humorous honks; an eagle, solitary and flying off to the mountains; watching hawks; a large herd of elk ruminating on past days and past grass; half of a rabbit, eaten partially and left, bloody, against the snow. So much to take in all at once.

Nearing the end of the trail, I was admiring the geese honking and conversing in around me, fiddling with the straps on my camera. Then – there was a torrent of noise waterfalling towards me, startling me out of my grey surroundings, bringing me forward like a magnet. The sound was bright, vivid, familiar. I knew who it belonged to as soon as I heard it.

Red-winged blackbirds, or Agelaius phoeniceus. I’ve heard the bubbling songs of these birds all my life, whether in the wetlands of southern Alberta or meadows in British Columbia. When the song reached me, I reached back. It sounded like spring.

My feet brought me to them quickly. I was excited, lured by their promise that spring would indeed melt the snows back and burst the buds forth. In several tall cottonwoods they were perched, black speckles of pepper amidst the branches, all singing. I would guess that there was one hundred of them, if not more. The sound here was immense, holy, a chorus that effervesced against the clouds like cherry pop against glass.

This is why I go into nature – to discover magic. It’s stepping into another world, and I love it, every single time. Spring enhances this mystery, keeping the scales in balance, showing us that life and death keep the world whole.