It is the season for spring
Ephemeral
wildflowers. Of all of the the flowers that I love, these are my favorites. So many of them are tiny and they are here for only a few days of the year, then gone until the next spring arrives. I first fell in love with spring ephemerals as a young adult when my mother-in-law, Marie, invited me to go on a wildflower walk with her that a local naturalist was leading. Learning about these tiny beautiful flowers was an epiphany. I fell in love with them at first sight.
Since we had no woodlands or trails in the farmland I grew up in, I had not seen or learned a lot about wildflowers when I was young, despite the many flowers that my mother grew. I am forever grateful to Marie for introducing me to two great nature loves of my life, wildflowers and bird watching. Though I’m not one of those birders who keeps a life list and travels somewhere just to see a new species of birds, I have learned to love seeing and hearing them at home and on my nature expeditions.
The modest A-frame cabin that Marie lived in year round after she retired, was located on a hill above Lower Pine Lake in central Iowa. Along the trail that circled the lake bountiful spring ephemeral wildflowers bloomed every spring. I hiked those trails around the lake as often as I could in the springtime Dutchman’s breeches, wild ginger, hepatica, rue anenome, and bloodroot were a few of the wildflowers I saw there.
And because Marie fed birds at the cabin I also began to learn to love birds in a way I hadn’t before. These two things — spring ephemeral wildflowers and birds have become sources of wonder, joy , and awe in my life.
More than just a walk
When I take a walk I notice the birds singing, and I feel a thrill of delight to see a downy woodpecker on a tree trunk or a bright red cardinal high up in the tree. And when I see a blue heron take off from a marsh, wide wings slowly flapping, my heart takes to the air along with the heron.
I also delight in the perfect delicate beauty of a tiny wildflower, here today and gone tomorrow. My motto on my walks should be, “Look up, look down, look all around. Listen carefully. Pay attention to the feel of the breeze on your face and the scent of leaves underfoot,” because that is what I do.
I usually take my woodland walks alone so that I can pay close attention to every little and every big thing I encounter. Even the touch of a spring breeze on my arms delights me. And the elusive scents of spring flowers in bloom fills me with joy.
“Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.” – Mary Oliver
Ephemeral Moments
Thinking about the word ephemeral today reminded me that though our lives last much longer than spring ephemeral season, many moments of our lives are also ephemeral. Time slips through our fingers like sand through an hourglass. To be truly present and awake is the only way I know to savor life to the fullest.
“…beauty consists of its own passing, just as we reach for it. It’s the ephemeral configuration of things in the moment, when you can see both their beauty and their death.”
― The Elegance of the Hedgehog
The things that bring me the greatest joy in life are simple — wildflowers, birds, trees, beauty. Each of them inspires a sense of wonder and awe in me when I see them. When I experience awe and wonder I feel I am totally in the present moment, absorbed in the sensations I am feeling now, now, now.
Awe and Wonder
And at the same time, the other important thing that happens in moments of awe is that not only are you completely present, but also you are in the presence of something that is vast. And that gives you a sense of humility and of being smaller or insignificant, but at the same time, you don’t feel disconnected from what you’re seeing, you feel part of it. So what you’re really feeling is you are a part of this unending, infinite marvel that is the world that is life. And that causes an expansion and a subversion of our normal ways of thinking that actually leaves us transformed.
…
So what I think this emotion is about, which I consider one of the most spiritual emotions, is it’s a window into the mystery. And when we allow ourselves to live it fully, and to become it, in a way, and for as long as we can to embody it, then we become what Joseph Campbell called, “transparent to transcendence,” which I think is one of the pathways into the sacred that at least I am more in love with. You become transparent because you’re erased for that moment and all you are is your connection to everything. So the heart is not the same after you experience a moment like that. And we all have experiences and moments like this, because we all look up at the sky, we all see sunsets, we all see flowers, we all see our children. But we’re not always open to the experience in such a way that we allow it to transform us.
— Fabiana Fondevila, The Many Flavors of Wonder
Have you gotten out into the woods this spring in search of spring ephemeral wildflowers? It’s a good time to go if you haven’t already. Perhaps you too will discover awe and wonder in these tiny beauties.
May you walk in beauty.
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