Adar Aleph More than Human World

We have thirteen months this year of 5784.  We add a month of Adar, so we have Adar Aleph and Adar Bet or First Adar and Second Adar.  The leap months, that occur 7 times in a 19 year cycle, accommodate for the fact that 12 lunar months aren’t quite as long as a full solar cycle—they are actually 10 or 11 days shorter.

It’s a little bit confusing to me about how to label this month. On a solar month basis where I live, February is late winter. When I lived in Central Virginia at sea level, February was more like winter into spring because there’d always be a few warm days that were really spring like—I’m talking 60’s or 70’s and then it would get cold again.  One thing I have learned as I’ve worked through this cyclical view of the seasons, is that it isn’t easy to capture descriptions perfectly for even my local ecosystem, let alone an ecosystem that ranges from Vermont to Georgia, or however we might view the boundaries of the Continental Ecosystem.  I think, more than anything else, it’s a question of observing what is happening outside your door.

This morning is a perfect example.  The trees feel as bare as they did last month.  The beeches and white oaks are still holding onto their leaves, and it is easy to see them because all the other trees are bare.  There’s the occasional patch of green grass where there is some kind of microclimate and/or where the neighborhood dogs have fertilized it, but most of the grass is still in winter mode, brown and waiting. The daffodils are starting to push up, but it just feels weird to see them, almost as if they are out of season.

I walked in the  neighborhood Arboretum a few days ago and the witch hazel and the redbud are not yet blooming.  The blooming of the almond tree marks, timed around Tu B’shvat, marks the beginning of the end of winter and the coming of Spring.  So I think of witch hazel and red bud as playing a comparable role in this ecosystem.  When they start blooming, spring won’t be here, but we know it won’t be far behind. And they have not yet bloomed here.

On the other confusing hand, sitting outside this morning I was listening to the birds and it felt like spring.  There’s more of them and the woodpecker is thrumming away calling for a mate.  I’ve seen two different chipmunks in the last week, and chipmunks sleep away most of the winter.  Apparently their heart beats go from a typical 350 a minute to 4 per minute when they hibernate in dens dug into the earth. The air feels gentler without the bite of winter and the days are longer. 

It feels like the earth is gradually waking up but isn’t really fully awake.  It’s like the transition before the transition. We’re not quite ready for the expansion of spring, but our bodies know that the time of contraction and cold is coming to an end.  

QUESTIONS

Do you have adequate reserves to make it through this last cold period?  Too much in reserves because you’ve been too closed off and hoarding?  Too few reserves because you ran too hard and didn’t prepare for the slow time?  Now is the time to look back and assess your state of preparation, so you can adjust before next winter.

What are you holding onto that you need to let go of in order to be open to the world? What are you holding onto that you should be holding onto like the beeches and white oaks who still have their leaves?

What happens in the more than human world that tells your body that winter is going to come to an end and that spring is coming?