Yesterday was also the first real warm spring day in Ithaca NY. Scurrying from our hibernation in the house we ventured into the garden to begin the post-winter tidy up. It needs a lot of work! But we've learned like the tortoise to go slow and steady. A few years ago we discovered that it's best to leave the fall leaves on the lawn over winter. The leaves become the winter shelter for the bugs. We also learned that "No Mow May" is important. The practice is to leave the grass (and the wild flowers that grow in the grass) until the end of May before its first cut. It helps the pollinators immensely and the bees return. We have also watched the variety of wildflowers increase. Delicately beautiful they are! Weeds they are not!
Nature, like the tortoise, makes slow and steady progress. The daylight is lengthening incrementally. The sun is slowly changing from winter cool to spring warmth. The plants are beginning to poke through the earth, little by little, each day only a fraction more. Change is always afoot. The greater yin of winter morphs to the lesser yang of spring to the greater yang of summer to the lesser yin of fall. As it always does. Always incrementally. Always to be enjoyed in its time.
I am slowly learning to flow with nature and it feels good.
Nature does, from time to time, have its sudden shocks—the tsunami, the earthquake, the tornado—but those revolutions are few and far between. Evolution takes a long time. Nature, for the most part, like the tortoise is slow and steady.
So for now, and in case I am ever invited to lead a political movement: "Up the incremental!"
+Ab. Andy
Photo by Radovan Zierik: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-shot-of-a-turtle-3912708/