There is nothing new under the sun . . .
Rumor, traveling through light and bird song, has it that we are coming on spring—that so-far faithful turning of the earth’s face toward the sun in our part of the world. I sit and watch the cold wind move the crowns of the white pine trees, who reach straight up for the sun, and I think, surprising myself, the earth turns and there is nothing new under the sun. This, if it needs to be said, was bad news and not believed anyway by the younger woman I was when the elders in my life muttered it.
It’s taken me quite a while to embrace the truth of it, that whatever we “dis” cover has been there, true to the word, all along. But it seems to me that there is nothing new under the sun, while it could be carried in a jaded and despairing way, is really the good news. Perhaps each new discovery of what has been there has the potential of renewing our awe, our love of this ancient life we live in and carry. If we study certain ways, certain peoples, we find cultural ways of both celebrating and encouraging that ancient dance of earth and sun as well as renewing the people’s love of and devotion to the turning. The marvel of it.
The wind moaned just now around my little writing house that used to be home to beloved goats and now their memory, along with squirrels, mice, chipmunks and the voice of wind. Now the audacious crows have landed to check out the situation, to make sure it’s up to snuff.
There is nothing new under the sun and if there is any tracking of newness, it is we humans who are the latest arrival here. While crows know how to be crow, many of us have either forgotten or been forced to relinquish knowing how to be human beings, enough to endanger the balance.
And yet, rumor has it that in sixteen days spring will yet again arrive in our part of the world, giving us yet another chance to remember how to be a human being in the great turning of things. Step outside, offer greeting and gratitude for the return of the light and the dark from which she came and for the gift of life that arrives at our door faithfully, yet so often bereft of welcome.
Blessings,
Nora