Nova Scotia’s woods beckon in May. They coax you outdoors and do their best to keep you engaged. Apple blossoms call out for your undivided attention as you walk along the path. ‘Look at us know’ they tell you, ‘we won’t be in bloom for long.’
Farther off the beaten path, bog rhodora wave at you in the breeze to come have a closer look at their petals. Their delicate beauty is short-lived too.
The soft white blooms of elderberry trees wink at you from a corner of the woods where mountain ash are also thriving. These elegant trees have cropped up in large numbers since Hurricane Juan downed most of the large firs and spruce. The lacy elderberry flowers wish to be noticed now too before they must give way to the berries.
Down by the seashore, the story is different. The whispers of the woods are drowned out by the ongoing moan of the ocean. The seaweeds sway with the current below the surface but remain silent. They want to be left alone in their muted sadness. Only the waves seem to relentlessly rush to the shore. Are they finding comfort among the rocks that are waiting for them there?
Whether large or small, the rocks have become rounded stones, worn out from listening to the waves’ endless refrain of sadness hour after hour, year after year, age after age.
The woods are never solitary–they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life. But the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity.
~ Lucy Maud Montgomery
Flandrum Hill 
What a contrast between the blue skies and flowers in the sun and the sad seaweed….like the days of our lives. Sometimes brilliantly blue and other times, a soft sadness that rises up. The circle of life, hey?
Like sands through the hourglass… these are the days… of our lives 🙂
You’re right Cindy… contrasts and changes seem to be a constant in our lives. It seems like they’re always asking us to adjust our plans and our vision of the world.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful spring. How lovely to watch the world wake up again.
Dawn, it is a beautiful spring. It’s all quite pretty but the blossoming trees really do add that extra bit of springiness.
Interesting that the cycle of life in the woods is annual, while the sea cycles on, as you note, endlessly, hour after hour, year after year, age after age, seemingly without change. I suppose lovers of the sea, if confined to forest, would miss the crashing drama, while we more arboreal creatures (I speak for myself) would soon feel battered if confined to the rocky, surf-pounded shore for very long.
Thank you, Amy, for the tour this morning. I have just learned that one of our local bank tellers grew up on P.E. Island, and our talk has refueled a lifelong yearning of mine to visit the Maritime provinces.
Pamela, the quotation in my post today is from ‘Anne’s House of Dreams.’ The Anne of Green Gables series by LMM is set on Prince Edward Island. Have you read the books or seen the mini-series?
I’ve yet to decide if I like the woods or the shore best. I definitely prefer the shore once the blackflies and mosquitoes are out.
Amy, you sprouted a lot of thoughts and feelings this morning with this post! I had never before thought of the waves as sad. That they were relentlessly pounding against the rocks. If I ever thought of the waves they were more like a heartbeat which thumps against the cage of the earth-body. Sometimes our heartbeat gets wild when we run and sloowwww when we meditate. And sometimes it’s sad, too. And happy. I wonder why these waves are unhappy. Is there something we can do to help them turn around the way they view the world? Perhaps to give them hope that they are smoothing the beach stones, helping the beach stones balance, to become perfect round circles of Presence?
Kathy, the waves have always seemed sad to me. There is a line from a poem, Offering and Rebuff by Carl Sandburg…
‘Let your heart look on white seaspray and be lonely.’
That line has spoken to me ever since I was a teenager. I don’t know why.
Now that is a provocative post, Ms Amy. I wonder if there are seasons underwater the way we understand them on land. There are certainly migrations of the wildlife. There is change, birth and growth and decline and death. The sea is the last frontier. I wonder if we’ll ever truly explore it. Maybe now that we’ve managed to rip a hole in its floor that is hemorrhaging black death it will occur to us to learn a lot more about it.
Getty, yes I think there are seasons underwater. I see a lot of lime green sea lettuce in some places that weren’t there in the winter. I’ve heard of the migration of eels and am sure there’s a migration of mermaids as well.
‘Hemorrhaging black death’ is the best phrase for the BP mess. What a nightmare for so many creatures and people living and making a living along those shores.