Editor’s note: This commentary is by Walt Amses, a writer who lives in North Calais.
“I always feel like every song is the last song”
— John Prine
Although our minds are most certainly focused elsewhere during this difficult time, it’s been spring for over three weeks, however imperceptibly it might have arrived. Autumn’s now drab leaves, in various stages of decomposition, are reappearing along with ever larger patches of bare ground and an assortment of garden tools, children’s toys and other simple objects that have now transitioned into symbols of a far simpler time. Was it only months ago or in another lifetime when we harvested the last of the kale?
It becomes ever more challenging to find things we can count on, even as pillars of strength are increasingly necessary for both our very physical survival and emotional well being. Instead, the situation seems to worsen by the hour. We find leadership void of character, a president intent on shielding himself at all cost at the expense of the country he swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend. While we suffer through what for many of us is the worst experience of our lifetimes, we’re told that this may be “just the beginning.”
The federal government response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been nothing short of abysmal, despite daily presidential assurances to the contrary. He suggests that his administration has done “unprecedented” things. True enough, but not necessarily in the way he would like us to believe. While the country is badly hurting and in dire need of clarity, empathy and compassion, we have a leader whose unprecedented narcissism crushes any tendency to consider others, however desperate their plight.
With seemingly every aspect of 21st century human existence on hold, we can take some comfort in the natural world, where it’s business as usual. As we Vermonters hunker down, the ecosystem begins waking up. Open water rings the edges of mountain lakes while smaller ponds have already thawed, welcoming the return of migrating geese and ducks. Bears are twisting bird feeders into impressionistic art objects while horny peepers provide a deafening crescendo of the sweetest music a boreal forest has to offer.
Throughout the world these implacable metamorphoses of springtime have inspired end-of-winter rituals that vary with geography; some steeped in religion, others purely secular; but the theme of rebirth permeates celebrations whether in woodland clearings or baroque cathedrals. While ancient Christians awaited a resurrected savior’s return, for other early peoples the reemergence of the growing season was reason to rejoice; food supplies would soon be restored.
Tomorrow devout Christians celebrate another holiday borrowed from pagan vernal equinox rituals — Easter Sunday commemorates the resurrection of Jesus, in starkly similar fashion as Ostara, the Wiccan reunification of the goddess with her lover, who spent the winter in death. The day on which Easter falls is rooted in ancient astronomy, landing on the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the vernal equinox. Apart from star gazing, thousands of years of all manner of spring revelry are largely focused on rebirth after a long, cold winter.
As tenuous as the future may feel right now, we might be far better off taking our cues from the cycles of our environment rather than the proclivities of the political theater surrounding us, insinuating itself into our consciousness and jeopardizing our lives. While spring represents a resurrection after all, plants and animals alike, are coming back in what we often refer to as rebirth, we have for thousands of years recognized the symbolism both practical and metaphysical of this joyous time. And the best part is that our minds could be a million miles away and spring doesn’t care. Spring happens anyway.
And when this crisis ends — and it will end — we will have learned a great deal even if our government has not, and we might do well to remember some of it to ease our way toward an uncertain future. Perhaps the vernal equinox precepts of rebirth and resurrection should remain with us until our footing is steadier. When the leader’s inadvertent acknowledgement, the single most honest self assessment he’s ever provided, is bluntly: “I don’t take responsibility at all,” our stark, collective realization is that from this point forward, it’s on us.
We should resurrect nothing less than honesty and integrity; demand that empathy and a measure of humility are reborn; and plant seeds that will eventually yield intelligence, vision and a sense of commitment to the well being of each other and every other living thing on the planet.
