“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.”

 Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: A Story from Different Seasons

When I woke this morning it was full dark. I showered, did my hair and packed a lunch. In the midst of my running around, daylight came. I stepped outside to start my car. Though the morning was cold, I could feel a shift in season. It seemed as though the change came over night. I could smell newness in the air. Even with frost on the windshield and snow on the ground, I knew Spring was right around the corner. Could almost taste it. I wished for lilacs and the scent of freshly mowed grass. I knew those two wishes wouldn’t come true for awhile.

I sat in the driver’s seat and started my car. Jacked up the front and rear defrosters. As I headed back to the house I saw them, two Red-Breasted Robins. Their feathers appeared brighter in contrast to the stark white snow. I rejoiced in the confirmation that yes, change was coming soon. The snow would melt. The ground would thaw. With that, would come the faint scent of mud and fresh earth in the air. My soul would set fire, knowing that my favorite season was upon us yet again.

And I, along with nature would be reborn.

Edna O’Brien, the Irish novelist said, “In a way, winter is the real spring–the time when the inner things happen, the resurgence of nature.” 

This is the case in the Sonoma wine country where the naked, golden brown branches after months of dormancy, resurge into pink buds and lush green vines, but not yet, not yet.

This is nature’s low-key time, perfect in every way with not much to do.  Winter makes me want less, need less, feeding myself and my family with only the basics: food, shelter, love, connection, and energy to create a new.  To be reborn like every living thing in the garden.

I am reminded of nature’s patience and the need to cultivate more of my own.  My German Shepherd Jeb waits for our daily walk near the veggie garden, still needing clearing for seeds this spring.  In good time, we will plant basil, cilantro, chili peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, parsley, cucumbers, and artichokes. 

But for now, my desire to go inward, observe and write is heightened.  The quiet allows for new songs of Sonoma to surface and make their way onto the page–of the orange breasted Robin hunting for seed on the grassy knoll of our vineyard, of the Camellias waiting to burst into red color from my kitchen window, of the night sky diamonds shining their brilliance under the valley of the moon.

I watch life with all its intensity, active stirrings and true offerings.  I accept the cycles of nature–of death and rebirth.  I see reality clearly and understand intuitively, the beauty of this life found in the silence, creativity, and simplicity of nature’s surroundings.  I think of Aristotle’s words…

“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”