So Much Magnificence
Chilly morning air, washed clean with an all-day rain yesterday, awakens me to beauty…more beauty. More magnificence. From my perch on the front porch, the far mountain ridge is draped with clouds—moving beings of white mist. Bird song fills the space between here and there…tom turkeys…wood thrush…nut hatches…blue jays…red-bellied woodpeckers…carolina wrens…towhees…and as I write this a hummingbird, the first of the season, buzzes the porch.
Colors of spring creep slowly up the mountain, each day offering a new shade of green or pink or light orange. My favorite color season is spring…the tom turkeys tend to agree as they gobble, gobble, gobble searching for their alluring hens. The near ridge is robed in those sweet spring colors but that far ridge, the one with the dancing cloud, is still winter-bare.
The other day I rode up Highway 441, the road that goes through the Smoky Mountain National Park from Cherokee to Gatlinburg. I started in a lush, green spring and climbed to winter where icicles still clung to cliffs. When the road lowered in elevation it was an amazing rush of colorful leaves that enfolded all who entered that tunnel of green.
Wildflowers this year have been amazing, probably due to a very wet winter. They are thriving and as the lower elevations fade, the upper elevations have yet to see trilliums, lady’s slippers, showy orchis. Spring seems eternal here.
In spring the trees share their beauty by the daily movement of color up, up, up to higher elevations while in the autumn the colors begin at the highest peaks and slowly move down to lower elevations. It’s a never-ending dance of temperature, moisture, position of the sun…life continues on and on and on.
The sun illuminates the far mountain ridge now as clouds turn golden in their swirling, whirling—dervishes worshipping through sacred dance. The turkeys still gobble for their sweethearts, the wood thrush fluting near the creek below.
Sadness found me this morning as yet another loss of life shocked me. Not her! She’s such a light in this world. I felt a pull to the porch, to Nature…to life. Keep living, keep breathing, keep opening and opening and opening.
I just noticed the red bud starting to bloom as I glanced up and gazed into the woods. The turkeys must be dancing, their gobbling reaching a new frenzy. The sun kisses the closer ridge as it breaks through dark clouds…that green, the green of early morning sunlight, is perhaps the most precious of all the greens.
The magnificence of life reminds me to treasure each moment…the glorious ones filled with springtime magic as well as the sad ones filled with grief. We knew coming into this physical body that it would fade, just as the flowers fade, the trees fall during storms. Perhaps that’s what makes life so incredibly sacred. While we are here we have been gifted with a present so glorious…if only we would remember to notice…the colors of spring as they creep up the mountain…so much magnificence.
It had been a rainy, cool day. Gray skies. Rain. Rain. Rain. The blueberry bushes in the garden must have grown three inches in one day. Each time I looked out the window, more green. It was the kind of day that lures me into an easy nap. Drop, drop, drop on the metal roof. Low light. A bit chilly so perfect sinking-into-the-puffy-recliner-reading weather.
I paused the video, ran upstairs and grabbed my case with drone, controller, licenses, permits, batteries and all the stuff necessary for safe flying. Just a quick up and down in the driveway would at least give me a bit of airtime.
And then…as the drone hovered directly overhead (I live at 2100 feet elevation) the sky began to do something amazing. It appeared that a spiral of clouds was coming out of the sun. And then wispy, thin fog tendrils began to creep over the mountain below the clouds. It takes hardly any time for fog to creep over mountain tops and more than once I have witnessed fog climb that particular nearby mountain and create a sea of white below the peak.
The light just before sunset, just before sunrise is always the sweetest. But that day it was the spiraling clouds, the creeping fog and the gray light that had me standing in my pajamas and fluffy slippers with my mouth hanging open and the words…oh…my…GOD! coming from a deep place of inner awe.
Flying a drone gives a new perspective, a new way to learn about the place in which I live. It helps me rise above everyday attitude as I gain altitude. I love it when Nature gifts me with a phenomena that renders me nearly speechless or a place that cannot be described in words.
I was working downstairs, finishing up painting started before Christmas. I took a break and went upstairs to get water and a snack and saw beautiful, fluffy snowflakes drifting gently to the ground. Finally, it’s snowing.
It was 27 degrees and snowing heavily. I couldn’t see the ridge of the Smoky Mountain National Park or any of the ridges in front of my home. We were in a complete whiteout. The only thing visible was the area around my home.
It was so quiet, especially given the strong winds that blew through after the floods two days ago. Everything stopped and was silent.
Two years ago I was in Ireland enjoying my most favorite place on the planet, besides the Smoky Mountains where I now live. But a lot of stuff…no, a lot of shit…has gone down between those precious days in Ireland and today on the mountain where I live, move and have my being.
Finding balance has been challenging as I feel somewhat stuck in a trauma loop. But the snow, the silence, the softness drew me inward like only the magic of winter can. Suddenly, and without warning, peace unfolded from deep within my core.