Cabin Journal: Nothing Is Lacking

When I first arrived at the cabin this week, the first thing I noticed was the bare ground. The absence of snow is startling after six months of winter. In Wild Basin, the several feet of snow that dazzled me all winter has melted from the creek, which is roaring and open for the first time since last fall.

But the snow was such a powerful presence, creating its own austere and elegant landscape, that it feels like something is missing. Especially because the earth is still raw. Only a few pasqueflowers (below) have emerged around the cabin, looking battered by all the snowstorms. The aspens haven’t leafed out yet, so the world seems colorless, even with a few grasses coming up among the brown and rocky earth.

Yet, if I look closely, sit still and listen, and peer under rocks and trees, there’s more life emerging than I think. Last week, I saw one hummingbird; this week, the sky seemed full of them, chasing each other and doing crazy loops in the air. Last week, both bird nest boxes around the garage were empty, but this week violet-green swallows had reclaimed one.

I thought the other was abandoned until I heard a brilliant song above my head one morning while I was outside meditating and looked up to see a house wren, one of my favorite summer visitors. Holding as still as possible so I wouldn’t spook it, I watched the bird fly over to the nest box that had been used for several years by these small birds. When another wren appeared, the two appeared to quarrel over which one had tenant rights. Finally, one gave up, and the victor flew into the box and started getting rid of last year’s (or perhaps its competitor’s) debris: Out came bits of leaves and twigs and one feather, sailing softly to the ground. It was time to start a new nest.

When I drove 1,000 feet down into Estes Park to hike the Twin Owls trail, at first I was disappointed to see that, at even at this lower altitude, the aspen were still bare. After the pandemic, all I’ve wanted is for life to return to normal, to visit my favorite trails and have them be just the way I remember from years past. But that hasn't quite worked out. I partly blame the pandemic and all the unforeseen changes it has wrought, like twice as many people visiting the mountains. Or should I blame climate change for an unusually wet spring that has delayed the start of new life? This late in spring, snow still covers the range of mountains that encompasses Mount Meeker and Longs Peak.

However, in a springlike gesture, thunderstorms rumbled to the south and east as I hiked. Alongside the trail, I found pasqueflowers blooming. Down in the meadows, a herd of elk (above) warily eyed me, their winter coats molting. On the return trip, I slowed down, training my eye to notice what was present on this May day: the leaves on the currant and sumac bushes starting to unfurl and, under the protection of small boulders, tiny ferns (left) rolling out their leaves. Ferns are one of the most ancient plants on earth, munched on by dinosaurs when the landscape was much wetter. Here in these dry mountains, they find small pockets of moisture, like under these rocks, to thrive.

As my wonder increases at spring unbounding, I can see that life slowly and haltingly starts to fill in, like a patchwork. The world is not lacking. What is lacking was my faith in this process.

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Nice conclusion, Kathy. Thanks for that. At our meditation retreat last week, we discussed the perfection of things as they are. The world's systems work perfectly; it's only when we attempt to intervene and control natural processes that things go awry. (Of course, this view depends on recognizing death as integral to perfection …)

Posted by: Jennifer Woodhull | May 24, 2021 at 12:47 PM