“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like?”…
“It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…”

 Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“It was one of those [May] days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”

Charles Dickens

“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”

Rainer Maria Rilke

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. -George Santayana

I feel lucky to be a Marylander. We’re fortunate to see the seasons bleed into one another while our landscape gradually shifts around us. As swift and grand an entrance Autumn makes, coaxing the annual crowds of “leaf peepers”, we double take as she coyly dissipates after a mere few weeks. As if she stole the stars above, she marks our rural roads with glints of crystalized trails, an invisible map only managed by the richness of the moon. The days grow longer, the fissures of ice have no choice but to surrender into puddles of mud. Spring saunters in, teasing us with bouts of warmth scattered among the loitering winter days. A familiar seasonal tale, that we all know too well. Our eyes flutter open to a sight for sore eyes. Trees grow obese with succulent emerald leaves that burst from countless buds. Tasseled sleeves fashion the arms of elder pines, bowing down as they touch the earth. Families of serpentine ivy crash and collide, choking neighboring geriatric trunks, suffocating any traces of dun and scorched flora; their chaotic embrace which leaves only the sweetest viridescent shades of summer behind.

The tonic twilight yawns, casting droplets of dew that sheen like a myriad of diamonds. Breaches in the clouds spill an invincible iridescence that clarifies and nurses the sear-spotted grounds, healing wounds from the dry days of Winter. She eventually succumbs, melting into the invincible glow of a horizon renewed. As nature things, we inherently form cocoons around these algid days, wrapping the season around us like a childhood blanket. Triggered, we lounge and mask in the familiar warmth of nostalgia, soaking up the season’s diffusing aura like a trite kitchen sponge. She rises now a wee bit earlier with every passing morning, roused by the irenic songs and heavyhearted hymns that drown out thwarted apologies: she whispers remorse of season’s past and the lack of her expected days that were never had. She stretches and spreads her tepid rays that zigzag and seep into the cracks of black-out curtains.  She casts warm, threadbare-like shapes that creep up bedroom walls, beckoning us to rise and shine.

Canopies of archaic trees oscillate and kiss the ancient sky. Below, cliques of bare naked limbs gyrate to the requiem of nature. The sincerity of light stalks the woods edge, precipitating a reflection of regal hues. With arms wide open, we welcome the season change as the zephyr’s notes embrace us like an old friend. The migrating winds shift and collide, electrifying the mellisonant air, stimulating the deep, weary cells that lie dormant within us. The atmosphere’s modifying presence summons an abstruse awakening that cloaks the ocean sky which cradles the full Flower Moon. It’s always the time of the season.🎴

the many faces of the flower moon☾

May’s Flower Moon name should be no surprise; flowers spring forth across North America in abundance this month!

“Flower Moon” has been attributed to Algonquin peoples, as confirmed by Christina Ruddy of The Algonquin Way Cultural Centre in Pikwakanagan, Ontario.

May’s Moon was also referred to as the “Month of Flowers” by Jonathan Carver in his 1798 publication, Travels Through the Interior Parts of North America: 1766, 1767, 1768 (pp. 250-252), as a likely Dakota name. Carver stayed with the Naudowessie (Dakota) over a period of time; his expedition covered the Great Lakes region, including the Wisconsin and Minnesota areas.

The Cree names Budding Moon and Leaf Budding Moon celebrate the awakening of local flora, which really begins to leaf out now in many areas. Similarly, Planting Moon (Dakota, Lakota) marks the time when seeds should be started for the farming season ahead. 

The activities of animals marked spring’s arrival, too, which is highlighted by the Cree names Egg Laying Moon and Frog Moon, as well as the Oglala term Moon of the Shedding Ponies. All three names indicate that warmer weather is on the way!

the next full moon