“It is a serious thing
Just to be alive
On this fresh morning
In this broken world.” Mary Oliver
On Monday morning, the twenty-first of December, the winter solstice will mark the end of the solar year. Winter will begin; the garden will sleep; and we will face a colder, darker world. It is the rhythm of the seasons. Accepting winter and appreciating it for its particular majesty helps overcome the temporary loss of our botanic sanctuaries.
“There is a wonderful joy...starting out along the white road that leads across the hills. With each breath of the sharp, reviving air one seems to inhale new life. A peace as evident as the sunshine on the fields takes possession of one’s inner being.” Frances Theodora Parsons
A bit of hibernation, cozy inside while storms rage outside the windows, is comforting. Curling up with books and cooking in a warm kitchen with food preserved from last year’s garden are pleasures of wintertime. But walking outside, experiencing the shock of the cold and the brilliance of the sunlight reflected off the snow, is necessary. Inactivity is a danger to the body and the mind. During the gardening year a gardener is always moving; down to the ground, up again, and back and forth. In winter we must make a more concerted effort to be active.
The garden is frozen and resting; the birds are my winter flowers. I go out each morning before daylight to spread seed on the snow and fill the hanging feeders. I love the shades of blue on the jays, the scarlet male cardinal and the subtle coloring of the female, and the battering of the woodpeckers. But it is the little birds that give me the biggest thrill.
“I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.” Emily Dickinson
The ground-feeding juncos are first to arrive, before sunrise. Their slate gray and white feathers gleam as they quietly hop along the ground. The friendly, chatty chickadees, with their dapper, matching black caps and bibs, fly in one by one, take a seed, fly off with it, then return over and over again. The elegant tufted titmice, dove gray and white with black beaks and eyes, patches of rust on their flanks, and pointy crests, flit alongside the chickadees. The goldfinches, toned down in winter, flock in with heart-warming, sweet sounds. Creeping head-first down tree trunks and clinging to feeders are the nuthatches, often announced with a chuckled call. As I put out sunflower seeds for my avian visitors I am reminded of the sunflower blooms in my garden. Next year’s seed catalogs have started to arrive and sunflowers of varied sizes and colors are on my list for my pleasure and to feed the birds in early fall.
“I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.” Oliver Hereford
The shorter, colder days of December are perfect for reading. The seed catalogs, glossy garden books, and writing by gardeners and naturalists can bring you back to the garden, at least in your head. I’m sure there is a lot available on line as well, but I am partial to physical reading matter. I have been savoring “Gerard’s Herball”, first published in 1597. It describes the properties and uses of plants, both the natives of England and newly imported plants from across the globe, such as the Apple of Love, which is what he calls the tomato. The Elizabethan prose is charming and the attitudes expressed from four hundred years ago are fascinating.
A glossier and heavier book has kept me entranced during these cold nights. “Eden Revisited, a Garden in Northern Morocco” is a celebration of the garden of Umberto Pasti. His lyrical, magical, and sometimes bawdy chronicle of the creation of his masterpiece is illustrated by magnificent photography by Ngoc Minh NGO. This is an ode to a garden.
“Spirit of Place” by Bill Noble is another exploration of an individual garden, closer to home in Norwich, Vermont. Though not as exotic as a Moroccan paradise, Bill’s creation has a wonderfully rich variety of plants that we can grow here in Ashfield. Set by a hayfield and surrounded by the Green Mountains, it is another little Eden.
December. Let the garden sleep. Enjoy the beauty outside, stay warm inside. Winter begins on the solstice and lasts for three months, but the sunlight increases by a few minutes every day after the twenty-first. It’s going to be a difficult winter but I trust we will survive.
“I pray this winter will be gentle and kind, a season of rest from the wheels of the mind.” John Geddes
December 2020