Glory Days

There is a distinct change happening in the landscape around here. Most days there is still a chill in the air, especially close to the water and in shady areas, but there’s also a subtle hint of an underlying warmth that can be felt a bit farther away from the shore. With the sun so deceptively bright on clearer days, it can be challenging to know what to wear and it’s best to carry a pair of sunglasses and an umbrella. We have had the warmest winter on record with no snow accumulation except for up in the mountains. Subsequently, Spring appears to have arrived at our doorstep with a marvelously illuminated light and new life sprouting around every corner. The flora and fauna are both blossoming or, at the least, preparing to do so and the whole process is a joy to behold as time unfolds. Every day brings something different.

It’s a season of new beginnings, a time of reinvention and becoming more aware. We can take a lesson from nature about refocusing, letting go, and adapting to the changes in our lives. How have they affected us? For every negative thing that occurs there’s a positive on the other side even if we cannot imagine what that could even look like. It can take a bit of time to reveal itself but when it does it is often life-changing. Doors open, a light goes on, and a different view of our life appears. Sometimes all it takes is to stop looking in the same direction, particularly the same direction as everyone else, and make our own paths to walk along. Turn off and tune in. Perhaps it is time to stop listening to the everyday chatter in our heads and around us, get off auto-pilot, and observe life more beyond what can often be a short-sighted or one-dimensional version of the world. The glory days are here once more.

A vintage archive photograph of the fountain pictured above in Lost Lagoon. The immediate area really hasn’t changed all that much. The Jubilee Fountain, installed in August 1936 to coincide with the city’s 100th anniversary, was designed by Robert H. William, an electrical engineer of Hume & Rumble, Electrical Contractors and Engineers for the Vancouver Jubilee Committee.

Canada geese, such beautiful dinosaurs hanging out on the beach at English Bay. I sometimes picture the males as the bad boys strolling slowly around their domain, usually with their mates, honking and grumbling as they go. They mate for life with very low divorce rates, and pairs remain together throughout the year. Geese mate assortatively with larger birds choosing larger mates and smaller ones choosing smaller mates; in a given pair, the male is usually larger than the female. These caring relationships are truly wonderful to observe.

The goslings are arriving earlier this year. Right after I took this photo the family went to the lagoon for a swimming lesson. The babies grow up quickly while learning about goose life under the watchful eyes of their protective parents. Geese’s well-known parental instincts can apply to all goslings, even if those babies aren’t biologically their own. Every time I go for a walk I can see them getting taller and taller. I’ve come across other animals and birds over the past years. For example, raccoons, squirrels, beavers, skunks, and a baby coyote. Also herons, hawks, seagulls, crows, eagles, pigeons, and many songbirds. It always impresses me how they all survive the changing environments and always know how to live remarkable lives. We could do well to learn from them.

This tree literally fully blossomed overnight. The trees close by were only just starting to bud. There are now many trees exploding with blooms all over the neighborhood and they are starting to block previous views of the seawall and entrances to the park at the end of my street. It happens fast and ends just as quickly before the luscious and abundant leafy greens take over creating thickly shaded and canopied enclaves and paths.

The herons are now back in Stanley Park for their twenty-third year.

Click on this live link to Watch the herons

The heron’s nests became part of the trees that they have inhabited from year to year. After the babies are born an orchestrated cacophony of heron sounds begins, lasting for weeks. At 8 weeks of age, the young leave the nests and follow their parents to feeding grounds where they learn to hunt for fish, frogs, and voles, beginning the process of independent life. The first young birds begin an independent life in June and the rest are usually gone by late August. It becomes so quiet that walking by the empty trees you can’t help but miss them and what they represent.

A heron wading in the lagoon. Great Blue Herons can stand in near-freezing water hunting their prey without getting frostbite or losing body heat. They do this through a process called countercurrent heat exchange. I have observed them standing very still for long periods. They appear as masters of patience and perhaps in their own form of meditation. They are elegant and striking creatures that are always thrilling to come across.

In Perpetual Spring

Gardens are also good places to sulk.

You pass beds of spiky voodoo lilies   

and trip over the roots   

of a sweet gum tree,   

in search of medieval   

plants whose leaves,   

when they drop off   

turn into birds

if they fall on land,

and colored carp if they   

plop into water.

Suddenly the archetypal   

human desire for peace   

with every other species   

wells up in you. The lion   

and the lamb cuddling up.

The snake and the snail, kissing.

Even the prick of the thistle,   

Queen of the Weeds revives   

your secret belief

in perpetual spring,

your faith that for every hurt   

there is a leaf to cure it.

___Amy Gerstler

Post #115 with text and March photos, except for the vintage archive photo, by Jude Gorgopa, Reinvention Consultant and the Founder of Clout Et Cetera and The Fundamentals of Clout. Connect at: judegorgopa@gmail.com & LinkedIn.