Fresh Start with Skunk

A couple of weeks ago, I came in late in the day from town. The dogwoods had already finished blooming here, but the native azaleas and rhododendrons were just getting started. It had been one of those days Tom Hennen refers to as having 'the faint aroma of skunk' if you get my drift. I was feeling pretty worn out when I made one last stop at the mailbox before pulling on up the drive to the house. As I opened the car door and stepped out into the crunchy gravel I felt I was being transported into another world. Everything around me was green. The air was soft and warm and fragrant. I was astonished. I couldn't remember ever noticing before how clean and sweet the air smelled. I found myself smiling. I just stood there a few minutes and soaked it all up while my heart lifted.

Here on the lake it is the peak of Spring. The mountain laurel is in full bloom filling the woods with banks of white flower globes. The leaves are displaying all five million shades of spring green; nights and mornings are still cool, the air still breezy. Everything in the woods seems hopeful. The hot, dry days of summer are not on the horizon and best of all there are no mosquitoes. Now it is about nests, newborns and anticipation. Everything seems possible. Perhaps for all living things, that is the real gift. Spring's arrival is a witness to the continuity of life. No amount of technology has been able to divorce us completely from its power to awaken our connection to it. Some deep, deep part of us still remembers. I wonder if the source in us for hope swells up from this same place? They are both about second chances. Another opportunity to start over, begin anew. A fresh start. Doesn't that sound hopeful?

We seek hope in all sorts of places. Sometimes in a religion, a leader, a government, our relationships, but ultimately, I believe the source of it has to come from within. External things will inevitably fall away. They are after all, only human. Within each of us though, is a part that is more. The mysterious territory where we dream , create, and experience the building blocks of fresh starts and second chances: faith, trust, hope and love.

Two eggs rolled from the goose nest

down to the water and halfway into the water,

What good is hoping?

I went there softly and gathered them

and put them back into the nest

of the goose who bit me hard with her
lovely black beak with the pink
tongue-tip quivering,

and beat my arms with her

lovely long wings

and beat my face with her

lovely long wings,

What good is trying?

She hissed horribly, wanting me to be frightened.

I wasn't frightened.

***

Sometimes I really believe it, that I am going to

save my life

a little.

Mary Oliver, What Do We Know

So thinking about all of this, I am wondering. Maybe over the next couple of days, when the evening news or the day has been too full of the 'faint odor of skunks', perhaps you will recall my experience at the mailbox. Maybe that would be a good time to get up and go out the door into the great outside. Look past the yard work, or the busy street, and instead take a long lingering look up into the green leaves of the trees and sky. Do some breathing and sighing and walking around. Give the believing part of yourself a chance to be touched by the awakening world. Let the fragrant green place inside of you rise on up and air out the stale accumulations of day to day life. Everything around us in the natural world is making a fresh start, even the skunks, so why not you? Take that second chance.