Harbinger of Spring
It’s March already and I am so grateful. Living in Minnesota, I am always relieved when January and February are behind me for the year. March brings hopes for an early spring (not always realized but something I always wish for).
And March also brings milder temperatures. When new snow falls we can hope that it will melt quickly.
During snowy years, March brings some of the best cross country skiing of the year. And in some lucky years we slide into an early spring in March.
Early or late, spring always arrives sooner or later. Days lengthen. The weather warms and the woodlands awaken. This great awakening after the long winter’s sleep is my favorite time of year.
A few years ago I was out hiking in Wolsfeld Woods (a remnant of the Big Woods near where I live) in mid-March and saw a Mourning Cloak Butterfly (Nymphalis antiopa, also known as Harbinger of Spring). I was so thrilled to see a butterfly so early in the spring!
Curious to know what kind of butterfly it was and why it was in the woods so early, I looked it up online. I learned that adult Mourning Cloak butterflies overwinter in Minnesota, hibernating in tree cavities and underneath loose bark. That’s why they are one of the first butterflies seen in spring and also why their nickname is “Harbinger of Spring”.
“Welcome, wild harbinger of spring! To this small nook of earth; Feeling and fancy fondly cling, Round thoughts which owe their birth, To thee, and to the humble spot, Where chance has fixed thy lowly lot.” — Bernard Barton
This morning after meditating I took a few minutes to notice and appreciate any harbinger of spring in my life, from the melted snow and half-bare brown lawn in our back yard and the mild weather forecast for our area for the next 10 days, to the rough ice on the pond that has thawed and frozen several times already.
I see beauty all around me all the time, but this time of year, when the remaining snow looks dirty and worn, the trees bare, and the ground brown, I need to pay attention and look closely.
The beauty may be in the sky above me or a tiny tattered leaf on the ground beneath my feet, but beauty can be found if I look for it.
What harbinger of spring has appeared in your life this week? What little slice of beauty can you find in nature this week?
May you walk in beauty.
Harbingers of spring:
Sunshine and longer days
Melting Ice and Snow
Last year’s leaf in melting snow
Small remnants of snow – beautiful sky
March snowfall – beautiful and fleeting
March snow melts quickly
March is maple syrup time
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