We’re about a month past the winter solstice and the sun is emerging afternoons in the southwest from the forest beyond my neighbor’s apple orchard and fields. In many ancient civilizations, such as in Egypt, England, and Central and South America, indigenous peoples built vast monuments to mark phases of the sun. Those ancient societies marked the beginning of their particular cycles of planting, harvesting, and preparing for leaner seasons through their monuments. It is no accident that some indigenous peoples named the February full moon the hunger moon. Admittedly, my reference of the sun emerging from the woods is most personal, since someone near here but looking from a different perspective would see quite a different phenomenon.
Each year I mark this milestone but this year is a bit different because the cold has been substantial. People who have lived here for many more decades might disagree with my assessment because cold and snow was the expected condition of winter then, the norm, and I can imagine walls of snow beside roadways. My wife Jan, who went to the state university at Albany in the late 1960s until the early 1970s, tells of massive walls of snow on the campus, daily snow of some intensity or just snow showers, and cold that would shock most anyone besides a young adult for whom cold and snow were taken in stride.
The Transcendentalists of the 19th century saw universal values in the natural world. They often saw the work of the creator in nature, and natural settings were highly valued. Henry David Thoreau lived in a tiny cabin in Concord, which he recounted in “Walden” (1854) and was his attempt to live in accord with nature, and simply. He lived two years beside Walden Pond, and left what environmentalists would now describe as a fairly small carbon footprint.
As a kid living in Rhode Island, I was aware of natural settings, especially during long hikes through the countryside with my Boy Scout troop, or on many outings to the ocean. My dad was the most amateur of astronomers, so I knew in a general sense how the Earth and larger universe played out their seasonal transitions.
But as a kid, I was much more interested in the once-a-year purchase of my PF Flyers high-tops with their black canvas and white trim and soles. The PF Flyers ankle patch was a sort of badge of merit while waiting for the spring. The high-tops were a symbol, like the sun coming out of the woods these days. They heralded the longer days to come and the endless activities, such as daily sandlot baseball games, hikes, and beach outings. It was much different when I put on my Little League uniform and cleats, which were far less comfortable than my Flyers. I always liked the sandlot games better than the organized games because we were on our own at the sandlots, and there was no one to supervise us or make up rules. We adhered just fine to our own rules, since we were almost universally Red Sox fans and knew all the particulars of the game.
One February, I got my Flyers a few weeks early and could not wait to wear them outdoors. There is nothing as shocking as having slush pour in through canvas to remind a person what season it is.
Today, as I watch the sun emerge from its winter hideaway, or the expanding minutes of dawn in the southeast, I think about what it means to have a reverence for the natural world, to have a new pair of PF Flyers, a well-oiled fielder’s mitt, and a reliable Louisville Slugger.
