May Hope Follow Despair

Well, here we are in Holy Week, two months since I last posted a blog. Spring has arrived, snow and ice have retreated, and our earliest flowers have opened their blooms.  This is normally the season when all the descendants of Abraham's faith in God are celebrating seasons of spiritual hope: Ramadan for the Moslems, Passover for the Jews, and Easter for the Christians. And what has our toddler-tempered President done (in service to Israel's wishes) but start a senseless war to bring agony to members of all three faith traditions, in the very land where each faith had its birth, the Middle East. Bombs are crushing innocent families in their homes and schools in both Iran and Israel, young people are being sent into battle to die and to kill one another, the very earth of the Holy Land is being poisoned for generations to come by the heavy metals of weaponry, and the treasuries of all countries involved are rapidly draining to pay for the woe and waste of war. The lid from Pandora's box has been ripped away, and nobody knows how to capture those unleashed evils and shove them back into that box.  If I was feeling depressed two months ago, I'm hardly finding few remedies for sorrow now.

Ah, but my friends are helping.  And so is our burgeoning Earth.  And I feel profoundly grateful to my friends for urging me out into nature to experience that Great Goodness that lies at the core of Creation. Especially during this season of rebirth. 

My friends in our Thursday Naturalist group have led me to a woodland pond in the North Woods Nature Preserve near Ballston Lake, the pond ice-free at last, where Wood Frogs croaked out their calls to come create a new generation:

My ever-loyal pals Sue Pierce and Dana Stimpson have called me out to other Spring-awakened destinations.  Here we are walking the Bog Meadow Brook Nature Trail in Saratoga, where Pussy Willow puffs shone in the sun, and Skunk Cabbage plants were fully in bloom with florets of both sexes:

Sue and Dana also led me to the Firetower Trail at the Wilton Wildlife Preserve and Park, where we were astounded to find both American Hazelnut (Corylus americana) and Beaked Hazelnut (Corylus cornuta) blooming at the same time. In our past explorations, we have found that the American precedes the Beaked by more than a week.  Here's the American Hazelnut, bearing both dangling staminate catkins and one tiny red pistillate bloom. The catkins of this species are longer and more loosely attached to the twig than those of the Beaked Hazelnut:

And here are the very similar flowers of the Beaked Hazelnut, but with catkins shorter and more sessile to the twigs than those of the American Hazelnut.

We would have been disappointed if we had hoped to find other colorful spring wildflowers during our visit, but the forest was rendered brilliantly colorful instead by many beautiful fungi, mosses, liverworts, and lichens, all of which had made their homes on the dead wood of fallen limbs and tree trunks.

The glowing yellow-orange fungus on this fallen log is a Stereum species, but I could not name even the genus names of the moss or the lichen. But I certainly could enjoy their colorful display!

Again, I know the reddish liverwort is Nowellia curvifolia, but the lime-green moss is familiar to me by sight but not by name.

And here's another liverwort, but one whose name I'll never forget.  It's called Lovely Fuzzwort (Ptilidium pulcherimum), and just saying that vernacular name makes me smile. And it really IS a lovely liverwort!

And I also will never forget the very descriptive name of this gorgeously colorful fungus, the Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor), in one of its beautiful golden and gray color combinations.

Whoa!  This Violet-toothed Polypore (Trichaptum biforme) is one of the most common bracket fungi found in our regional woods, but never have I seen a mass of them glowing so vividly as this group climbing this tree trunk. And the day was gray and gloomy, so it was not sunlight that ignited them. It thrilled me to gaze at such beauty.

From above, these same fungi were not nearly so gorgeously colorful.  (Photo below) What a lesson: angle of perception can change everything!

Inspired by the deeply encouraging rewards of these outings with friends, I also ventured alone to the Spring Run Trail in Saratoga Springs, where I hoped to find one more reason to rejoice:  the emergence of the first wildflower of Spring that actually looks like a prototypical flower, the sun-yellow, bright-blooming Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara).  And there it was!

Finding the Coltsfoot risen so faithfully, I recalled this meditation I composed about this pretty little "weed" some years ago, and it seemed a good time to repeat it at this season:

It's almost Easter, and as Christians prepare to rejoice that the Lord is risen, we wildflower lovers also rejoice that the first REAL flower of spring -- one that actually LOOKs like a flower -- has risen as well. Alleluia! The Coltsfoot is up! The season of blooming is here! I know, I know, these are not native flowers, but these dear little sunny blooms, bursting forth in glory from out of the mud and the cold dead leaves, speak to me of resurrection far more than any pampered, florist-bred Easter Lily could. Like God's love, they are freely given, they spring forth unbidden, there's not a thing we had to do to deserve them, nor a penny we have to spend to enjoy them. Also, like the Incarnate One who dwelt among the lowly, they make their home among the poorest soils, brightening desolate roadsides where nothing else will grow. Supposedly, they even have healing powers. So bless you, dear little Coltsfoot. It gives me great joy to welcome you once more. 

To any and all of my readers who may have found their way back to this too-long neglected blog, of whatever faith tradition may grant you hope, I wish you the hopeful promise of growth and renewal this season signifies.  Happy Easter!