A Winter Woodland wish for the holidays
“Our gardens took us through some very difficult times this past few years, but let’s hope the end is in sight. Let’s take the opportunity to celebrate our gardens. I have put together a few favourite poems, quotes, thoughts and images to help us get through these final months before summer returns and our gardens and the world we live in spring back to life.”
A winter rebirth is rolling in
For many of us, our gardens represent an important part of who we are.
They give us the freedom to be ourselves; to indulge our creative minds; to touch the earth; to quietly experience the natural world as it comes to life around us.
In spring, our expectations soar and we visualize, always hopeful, how magnificent our gardens will become when the sun finally warms the frozen ground.
We wait, in great anticipation, for those first signs of spring. The first Trillium, the first Monarch… our first hummingbird. Each year the first sighting is as special as past years.
Our garden, our pride
This is our garden. It doesn’t matter if it’s a sprawling landscape stretching far off into the hills, or a small city lot that awakens each morning to the hustle and bustle of street sounds. This is where we call home. This is where we have chosen to set roots, to create our retreat, our safe place.
It’s where we enjoy our first coffee. Smell the fresh scent of the morning air and take in the sound of birds filling our trees with their sweet songs.
“Why do you try to understand art? Do you try to understand the song of the bird?”
In winter we wait.
From our windows, we look out at our feathered friends and welcome them into our gardens. We feed them, provide them with water and create protected areas where they can escape the cold winds that chill us to the bone.
Winter is their time in the garden, while we plan for the future … for a better day.
And that better day is coming.
The day we can open our gardens to our friends and family.
These past few years have been difficult.
Our gardens have given us much to be thankful for. A place to escape, a refuge to explore our creative desires and dreams.
As this year draws to a close, it’s important to remember how lucky we are to be able to share this space with Mother Nature.
“Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them?”
While we recovered from a dangerous virus that took the life of so many friends, our gardens rested too from the normal hustle and bustle. Animals around the world celebrated the quiet solitude that spread over the land. They began to take back much of what was once only theirs. In cities around the world, animals mostly confined to woodlands roamed more freely through the streets and into our gardens.
As the world slowed down, so did the sounds that disturbed the peace in our gardens.
Maybe, this was the time many of us learned to love our gardens.
Now we need to once again learn to love the crunch of leaves under foot. Find the pleasure in the spider spinning its web.
Let nature take root. Put away the chemicals. Let the grass grow between our toes to become a meadow. Listen to the crickets. Dance with the fireflies.
Listen to nature. Listen to what our gardens are telling us. It has something important to say.
“As long as I live, I’ll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I’ll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I’ll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can.”
Stopping by Woods on
a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
-Robert Frost
The Song of
the Chickadee
Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her,
still, she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.
Victor Hugo
“Can you imagine a world without trees
How long do you think you’d survive
Put yourself to the test, try it with ease
Hold your breath for the rest of your life”
“That little bird has chosen his shelter. Above it are the stars and the deep heaven of worlds.
Yet he is rocking himself to sleep without caring for tomorrow’s lodging, calmly clinging to his little twig, and leaving God to think for him.”
-Martin Luther
“I love the sound of the wind in the trees and the song of the birds and the shuffle in the leaves of my many woodland friends.”
“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields that it kisses them so gently?
And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.’”
-Lewis Carroll
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”
Feed the birds in winter;
in return, they will feed your soul with the look of gratitude!
- Mehmet Murat ildan
I soared above the song birds
And never heard them sing
I lived my life in winter
And then you brought the spring
- Randall Wallace
“On harsh, frigid January days, when the winds are relentless and the snow piles up around us, I often think of our small feathered friends back on the Third Line. I wonder if the old feeder is still standing in the orchard and if anyone thinks to put out a few crumbs and some bacon drippings for our beautiful, hungry, winter birds. In the stark, white landscape they provided a welcome splash of colour and their songs gave us hope through the long, silent winter.”
“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape – the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show.”
- Andrew Wyeth
“Let me bring you songs from the wood
To make you feel much better than you could know
Dust you down from tip to toe
Show you how the garden grows”
When winter winds are piercing chill, And through the hawthorn blows the gale,
With solemn feet I tread the hill,
That over brows the lonely vale.
O’er the bare upland, and away
Through the long reach of desert woods,
The embracing sunbeams chastely play,
And gladden these deep solitudes.
Where, twisted round the barren oak,
The summer vine in beauty clung,
And summer winds the stillness broke,
The crystal icicle is hung.
Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs
Pour out the river’s gradual tide,
Shrilly the skater’s iron rings,
And voices fill the woodland side.
Alas! how changed from the fair scene,
When birds sang out their mellow lay,
And winders were soft, and woods were green,
And the song ceased not with the day!
But sill wild music is abroad,
Pale, desert woods! within your crowd;
and gathering winds, in hoarse accord,
Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.
Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear
Has grown familiar with your song;
I hear it in the opening year,
I listen, and it cheers me long.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Have you seen Jack-in-the-Green?
With his long tail hanging down.
He sits quietly under every tree
In the folds of his velvet gown.
He drinks from the empty acorn cup.
The dew that dawn sweetly bestows.
And taps his cane upon the ground -
Signals the snow drops, it’s time to grow”
There is nothing in the world more beautiful than the forest clothed to its very hollows in snow. It is the still ecstasy of nature, wherein every spray, every blade of grass, every spire of reed, every intricacy of twig, is clad with radiance.
-William Sharp