The Winds Blow Past

Whenever anyone called my Dad old, he would say viejo es el viento pero mira como sopla (old is the wind but look how it blows). Today the winds were gusting as high as 40mph. As I drove to the Wills Hole conservation land, I saw a lot of tree debris in the road. While hiking on the trail, I noticed even more debris, no doubt remnants of today's winds and those of winds past.

The trees creaked and swayed, and there were many of them like this one, leaning on another for support.

I sat for a while facing the bog, watching as the winds pushed the water in ripples, letting my upper body sway away, allowing the strong air to rush through me. The winds blow past and once we experience it, stand back up, and clear its remnants, we can truly see the the underlying beauty before us.

The Color Green Salutes

A few weeks ago I came across these baby pines hoping to be noticed in their new white snowcaps.

And today while hiking the Heath Hen Meadow trail I found pine trees in abundance. Here a row of youthful ones stood in salute as I walked past.

And here an evergreen in the distance brought color and balance to this peaceful scene.

Without fail, the green in nature salutes us and reminds us that, yes, we are... breathing.

Rushing Water Falls

Today I hiked the Nashoba Brook trail. The brook runs through this conservation land from north to south, and I encountered it in a number of spots along my way. 

At this spot, I sat for some time facing the sun, feeling the warmth on my face and letting the sound of the water fill my listening. As the water fell closer toward the light it slowed.

Rushing water falls, and only when it slows down and becomes calm can it reflect its own beauty and its place in everything around it.

Miracle Sightings Abound

This past week I've been thinking a lot about snowy owls. In a rare phenomenon, their population has exploded this winter and many left their home in the Arctic tundra and have been spotted all over the USA. No, I myself did not spot one, but during a hike today on the Great Hill trail here in Acton with my boys, my younger son asked me whether I thought we would see one. I responded that, if we did, it would be incredible, but it would also be a miracle. As we trekked along, my son suggested a few places we might see them...perhaps nestled up in one of these tall pine trees?

I must confess that in the back of my mind I had been wondering whether I would see the snowy owl. After all, my past week was replete with small epiphanies involving this elusive bird, culminating last night in my random selection of a family movie (starring Jack Black, Owen Wilson, and Steve Martin) that turned out to be about, of all things, birding, and the snowy owl being the ultimate prize! As I walked, what struck me, instead, were these stone walls in abundance.

New England's charm in large part comes from its stone walls. The stones from these walls are 15,000 to 150,000 years old, and when the settlers arrived, they were mostly buried. With the ensuing cold winters, the stones were heaved up by frost and as the land was farmed, the rocks were hauled to the fence lines, forming rock boundaries that were later rebuilt to be more aesthetically pleasing. By the late 1800s, many rural farms were abandoned and the remaining walls were either enveloped by forest or their stones were quarried. Thankfully, there is a movement now to preserve these stone gems.

At the end of the trail, my son asked me whether I knew that the owl hanging he made for me in second grade (it's in my bedroom) was a snowy owl. I smiled, looking at both him and my older boy as he talked. I did, in fact, have a miracle sighting today. My boys are my snowy owls! Miracle sightings abound every day, and sometimes we just have to take down our walls to see them.