The weather has been gentle these last few days, allowing the snow to release its grip on our homes, our cars, our streets, our trees, our mobility and perhaps most of all, our spirits. It has pulled back from its monstrous presence, returning to a more reasonable scale, allowing us to believe, somewhat, that we can now manage it and our lives a bit better.

In its retreat, it has opened up access to the leading edge of the downed pine limbs that litter my front lawn. I decided, therefore, that it was time to begin harvesting them. I was unexpectedly overwhelmed by the lessons I learned.

In the quiet of this early, sunny Sunday morning, I stepped outside, almost directly onto a small bird, sitting quite still, but quite alive, on my front door mat.  I imagine that it must have just flown into the glass of my door, and was recuperating from being momentarily stunned. But its gentle vulnerability almost collided with my unseeing stride. We barely avoided a small but distinct tragedy, in both our lives. Luckily, we passed each other, both apparently unharmed, for the bird was not there when I returned.

Still, the possibility of deep, unintentional harm was on my mind as I gathered my saw and trash can (into which I was putting the bounty of my harvest) and headed toward the pine trees.

The snow was deep enough that I could not get to most of the limbs. But it had cleared enough to reveal a fuller sense of the scope of the loss of many branches and the story behind it. It was classic: a limb from up high had taken on too much snow and snapped off, taking with it, in a cascade of gravity, several of the limbs that lay beneath it. Many branches lay in a heap, tumbled one upon the other. They were difficult to untangle, especially those still encased in snow. They will have to wait for other 40-degree days. Then I should be able to free them.

I knew that the limbs that were down would be too green, too fresh, to burn now. I will need to leave them be, let them settle and ripen. They will have a full year to season before next year’s winter. But what I hadn’t anticipated was how difficult it would be to saw this fresh, sappy wood, and how surprisingly pungent and intoxicating the pine scent would be.

It took me but a half hour to fill my large garbage can with middling sized wood, the kind that fills the gap between the kindling and the large logs.

Throughout I was aware of the metaphors of human pain and hurt that this mild devastation of timber revealed.

There are times when someone - either we ourselves or someone we know or love - becomes laden with a burden they can no longer carry. Weighed down without relief, they eventually tumble, unwittingly, unwantingly, taking with them those around them, even those who sought to hold them up.

In the immediate aftermath of the fall, it is hard to disentangle one body from the next, one pain from another. It all just sits there, in a heap, hurting. But as time moves on, the snows recede, the edges begin to reveal themselves, the full and distinct extent of the loss appears. There is, at first, nothing to be done but weep.

Only then, only after that, can the healing begin. At least a little bit. Even when healing dares to come, it moves not in a constant, linear direction. In the sunlight, the snow can melt, loosening its grip, offering promises of freedom and renewal. But come night, the snow freezes, encasing the branches once again in a frigid grasp.

Still, over time, the weather warms, the branches claim their new shape, things settle. And in the midst of this cleaning up and clearing away, the reviving scent of the pine is released, as if to say: there is life even amid this loss. There is a spirit that renews us even in the rubble. Keep working, keep clearing, for the fragrance of experiences of life past will carry us to the blessings of life yet to be.

And hopefully, by this time next year, the downed limbs will be seasoned, ready to release their hard-earned energy into the flames that will soothe our
spirits, and warm our homes. 

I will go out again later this week, and saw and gather more wood.