As winter moves into spring we are tantalised with the promise of a seasons growth while in fact the lingering taste of a winter that has lost its welcome fills the senses. Cold winds from the east temper the joys of longer days and bright sunlight – there is little immediately evident in the landscape apart from a deepening sense of decomposition as the last year’s foliage disappears into a soupy morass.
This season ends in a stormy wash. The earth’s surface rendered into a purifying mud bath, a final cleansing of body and soul as the tempest scoured landscape prepares for a new cycle. Trees have been thinned and the paths are waterlogged; allowing the piercing gaze of the sun to expose and echo each tiny transition.
A new door opens – although outside lies the heart of winter – a raw austere land where each limb stands absolutely bared and stripped of foliage. Life’s passage is now frozen – reduced to the stirring of puddles, ice and freezing fog. Hope lies in anticipation; belief that some new deity of nature will manifest itself.
Earth smothered by seeping cold damp. Days pass eclipsed by the shadow of an unconquered sun – that spark of life is now buried safely in a cocoon of adversity. Trees decorated with frozen water form cracks against a sparse sky with each clear shape keeping hold of distant memory.
Autumn creeps in under the cover of mist – the rampant growth of the summer months consolidated in the bright fruits and berries that burst through the fading green. Skies open up in readiness for the harvest moon – the ground now littered with empty kernels and the chestnut colour of mushrooms.
These slowly dwindling surfaces of forest water offer a gateway to other worlds – a magical mirror that reflects and distorts. Folklore and myth suggest that these freshwater streams and pools are inhabited by spirits – sometimes playful and at other times malevolent. The Naiades of Ancient Greece are nymphs who nurture poetic creativity while simultaneously exuding a hypnotic sexuality to ensnare the unwary.
The fecund forces of nature rise from the earth and fill us with the excitement of unsettled energies. The sky turns a shade of blue not seen for months and those familiar skeletal branches pop with bright green. We become intoxicated by the liquidity of change – frameless pictures that continually evolve. April never satiates; it is a month of becoming and our image of the world around us recedes as we attempt to grasp it.
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