Bare Ground and Moving On From Rumination

The back field

And.....we have bare ground!  I've been able to take the dog out into the back field for the last two days.  The ground is very mushy in spots, I sunk down a few inches.  Still, it's not covered with snow and that's some serious progress. 

I can feel that my mood has shifted.  The two-way relationship that exists between the natural world and my mental state astonishes me.    The world and my mental state are substantially different from what they were just three days ago.  The sky is bluer, the air is warmer, there's more exposed ground to walk on, and there are signs of animal and plant life. 

Birch with tree fungus

 The days are longer, the sun more intense.  Everything seems to glow. The chickens free-range across the newly-exposed surface of the field and run from one area to the next. 

Woollybear

 One of our cats roll on the sun-warmed surface of the driveway.  The dog is delighted at all the new scents exposed under the melted snow and he rejoices in all the unmentionable stinky things to eat and roll in.  My husband time-lapses the melting surface of our pond and tells me about the butterflies that he photographed during his mid-day walk with the dog.  None of these things directly involve me but they make me happy.  I'm filled with joy when I see all the chickens pile into the compost heap and I hear the roosters chortle to tell the hens about their finds. 

Chickens in compost

Just today I've started a new massively open online learning course (MOOC):  How Writers  Write Poetry through the University of Iowa.  I've only watched the first part of the first video, a piece by poet and essayist Lia Purpura on the practice and purpose of note booking, but it has already inspired me to be more conscientious about jotting down the thoughts and observations I have during the day.  While I've been journaling almost every day for the last several years, in the last month, I'd fallen into a bit of a slump where I record only the most basic descriptions of my mood and the events of the day. Now, I'm re-energized about the practice of writing and thinking.

Garlic sprout

I notice that the questions about purpose and meaning that troubled me so deeply just three days ago have fallen into the background. I'm not sure what to make about this, is it a good thing, is it a bad thing, what does it mean?  I understand its cause, certainly: there are things now that distract me from those kinds of rumination.  And I see that there is a difference between reflection and rumination, one I hadn't appreciated before.  Reflection is thinking; rumination is thinking polluted by mood and obsession.   I was not reflecting: I was ruminating. 

I see the need for reflection at this point in my life, well, at any point, but at this point especially.  There have been major changes in my life and I'm still struggling to figure out how I want to live and what I want to do.  I'm trying to find meaning now that many of the things that gave my life meaning--teaching, being part of an academic community, engaging in research, developing new programs, direct action activism, etc.--are no longer possible for me due to chronic illness. 

Beech with shadows

This winter I gained a fresh appreciation for the influence of the natural environment on me.  What at first was an opportunity to engage in sustained reflection, reading and writing, became a seemingly endless period of pointless rumination.