The Generosity of Spring...and Election Time in Canada

There is nothing that brightens this spirit like a mild, wet morning in spring when everything is subtly beginning to green (save perhaps a mild, wet spring night when the amphibians are on the march from wetland to wetland in hunt of a mate).

Oh the softness of green as it emerges upon the otherwise grey, brown world. Oh the wild chorus of spring! How these conspire to bring the colour back into my heart! And with the upcoming Canadian federal election tomorrow and all that is at stake in terms of goodness here and in the world, the generosity of nature in springtime is something I am remembering to attune my heart to.

For me, the generosity of spring in the natural world is unmatched. Everywhere one turns, the heart and mind are filled to positively bursting with the energy of aliveness, of being a heart- beating, desiring creature of the world.

Oh the wildness of it all—the pulsing rhythms and cycles, the urges and urgency, the devour or be devoured games play out in seeming double- time in spring. (elections included)

In the midst of all the near deafening, all consuming madness and horrors going on in the world these days, I try to remember, as best I’m able, to ensure I spend quality time outside of my home and away from *digital screens.

Doubling- down on nature immersion to help better hold the weight of the world’s bad news might look like simply getting out to gaze upon the sky at night and noticing what stage of visibility the moon is in. It might be a poke around in the garden or tipping your cap to see if the Magnolias’ buds have broken into creamy petals yet.

Our many years long habit of daily walks around where we live means gearing up to meet the elements. My eldest daughter and sometimes one of my other two YA children and I head out the door for a little tromp about the neighborhood in almost all weather. We acknowledge our privilege in still owning a vehicle that means we can avoid walking for errands in the worst of weather times as well as having the gift of a mostly warm home to come back to.

These are not things we take for granted.

We know the painful uncertainty of the era we live in.

Building the resilience to face an outdoors walk in all manner of wild weather after 9pm has built inner resilience for us as well.

Facing a bracing north wind with our scarves wrapped snug around our necks and our hoods pulled over our toques means that we can giggle at how the wind howls at us as though we are not even there, pushing past us with enough force to almost knock us down. Or the sting of ice pellets or driving mist of a cold and drenching rain.

Or the head spinny, intoxicating swirl of snowflakes.

We have walked both day and night through all of these and on clear nights when the moon or constellations take our breath away and stop us in our tracks, we become still and gaze awestruck for a while.

Sometimes it has meant trail walking through depths of snow not yet trampled on, past glistening icy boughs of evergreens or stepping trepidatiously across an unexpected gleam of ice on the trail. In more recent days, it’s sometimes through an Island brick- red, slickness of mud as slippery as some politician’s tongues when making promises or evading the pressing questions of the press.

In freezing and in utterly changeable weather we have carried ourselves out of doors with our troubles both large and small (and increasingly compounding themselves these difficult days) and we are never not rewarded with a lightening of our cares, with the shimmer of beauty bright upon our hearts thanks to our showing up and paying attention to the out of doors.

And we do so even when it is really difficult.

When a nearby little woods we love was so catastrophically damaged from Hurricane Fiona in late Sept 2022 that its trails were no longer passable and then when a large portion of the same woods was clear cut by its owners the following autumn and our hearts were doubly broken by the loss, I sat and cried on a fallen log, cried as I walked the gravel road in grief, cried for all that has been lost the world over in climate disasters.

For days and days I cried. I could cry right now just writing this if my own heart weren't so tired and numbed with care right now.

Still our nature walks carry us through the challenges and for this I am so very, very grateful. We show up and name both the beauty and the sorrows as we see them and doing so holds a power of awareness that only increases as we practice it.

It might be that we note things as simple and wondrous as the gentle softness or maybe biting harshness of the air, the ever changing quality of light or the rapture of the sudden appearance of a half- white snowshoe hare feeding at dusk in the undergrowth near one of many woodland trails we frequent or the little tawny brown short-tailed weasel my husband and I saw popping up out of a ditch near heavy traffic. Or maybe it's the first budding shoots of green in the forest and in the garden.

The list of possibilities of what might charm one or whet curiosity, reminds us of the largeness of the world and the endless possibilities for nature’s expression within it and within us... for truly we are one…for better or for worse and whether we remember this or not. Even against great odds, the ingenuity of the more than human life natural world is seemingly, thankfully, strong and this never fails to stir my often half- broken heart towards love and protection of that which sustains us all and brings us life.

I am sure that I could go on ad infinitum or at least until my own ending. In fact, my own midlife, human heart’s greatest desire is to never lose the need for nature immersion so I might remember that the wonder out there is only and always rival to and partnered with the wonder and possibility we carry within.

This spring election, please vote, and please consider voting for caring and the protection of all people, creatures and all lands.

XOXO

Thanks for reading!

And please remember that a measure of steadiness in the midst of great upheaval might be achieved by naming the feelings of unsteadiness as they arise and offering oneself an immensity of kindness.

In peace,

in breath,

in hopefulness and love,

Jill

-- On Monday April 28, 2025 there is a Canadian federal election with a lot riding on this one in terms of equality, caring, diversity and justice, both socially, environmentally and fiscally, with one party in particular, the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre, whom, in my humble opinion, should be kept out of office for the betterment of all life.

Please, if you haven't already, vote like life depends on it. It does. XO

*thanks to my dear dad for all the work he does to keep my family in updated and rehabilitated screens so we/I can have contact with the world beyond our little here and now. XO

And a link to my new (this past winter) free substack where I am transitioning most of my writing to in time. There are a few essays there not on Prattle and Ponder though this one today is cross-listed to my substack newsletter...if you are so inclined!

https://jillmaccormack.substack.com/p/the-generosity-of-springand-election