This year on March 19, the Spring Equinox, known as Alban Eiler, or Ostara, is the transition between late winter and early spring periods. It also marks the day, along with the autumnal equinox, when daylight and nighttime are equal lengths. Now, the days will continue to get longer until the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.
I went to a park near my house (on Puyallup ancestral homeland) that has a creek running through it to a park near my house that has a creek running through it and also a duck pond. The creek feeds into the duck pond, and the duck pond acts as an overflow for the creek. In between the duckpond, and the creek is an island, a sliver of land. The duck pond slowly and quietly empties into the creek creating the island. It feels like a truly magical place. The creek is cool and fresh, the duck pond is full of life, with at least three different kinds of ducks.
The creek meanders along eventually running into the Puyallup River a little ways down. to the creek, stones and cement blocks hold the shoreline which is slowly eroding. The creek is lined with trees with branches, bowing over the water. There are two bridges that connects the mainland to the small sliver of an island, creating a loop. Next to one of the bridges, there is a tiny, boat ramp, and this part of the creek, then bends around the corner through wetlands and tall grass, and continues on out of the park. I love sitting here, watching the water flow from the duckpond to re-enter the creek, which then flows into the river, which empties into the Salish Sea. The brackish sea, then eventually joins with the ocean. The Pacific Ocean, eventually connects with the Atlantic Ocean, which brings salt water into the Chesapeake Bay, which mixes with the freshwater from many rivers to create brackish water. From the Chesapeake Bay you can go up the Severn River to Mill Creek, the one-time home of my great grandfather, my grandfather, my father and me.
Mill Creek is where we had the family boat yard where my grandfather and great grandfather built and repaired wooden boats. It’s also where both of them and I used to sit over the decades on the back porch of the house overlooking the creek to sit and contemplate life and the nature around us. My grandpa used to talk about sitting there and watching the tomato plants grow in real time. Before I left, I would often go to sit on the back stoop at night, watching the water lap against the bulkhead, and rock the sail boats there halyards clanging in the breeze. I would look at the stars and marvel at them.
In the park by my house along the creek near the other bridge on the island, I was in awe of the native Sitka spruce tree nestling with the native tall Oregon grape shrubs. The textures and colors of the leaves were stunning. I thought about the relationship between the trees and the shrubs, and how beautiful they were in both their simplicity and complexity. I sat on a bench and watched them for a while, soaking in the air and the drizzle and the coolness and the fresh smell of earth and rain meeting.
Next I walked and visited a beautiful paper birch tree. I marveled at the lichen and moss growing on its trunk. There were many grooves and ditches and divots in the bark, where humans had carved their names and initials scarring the tree. I apologized to the tree on behalf of the humans who mistreated it. On the ground, there was a fallen branch from this tree with the paper bark still intact encompassing nearly completely rotten wood. I brought home some pieces of the bark as an offering to my ancestor altar.
Then, I met another tree, which appeared to be a weeping willow along the bank of the creek. It’s long, spindly, drooping branches leafless. Sticking out of the tree at the base was a metal bar and throughout different parts of the tree trunk were pieces of metal sticking out of the bark, and what appeared to be wire, wrapped around the tree, creating scars and wounds, healed over and jagged edges. Branches were overlapping and even in one part, a branch had reconnected itself to the tree. I also apologized to this tree on behalf of the ignorant or forgetful humans who failed to remove the metal stakes and wire, which likely had kept it in its place and supported it and its youth but we’re never removed in order to let it fully flourish without harm as it matured.
I continued on my walk to the tiny boat ramp, and I sat with the water, and I let it run over my hand, and between my fingers, the pressure of it, pushing and rippling around my fingers, and through them, the flow continuing, smoothing the rocks and taking away bits of shoreline, providing life to ducks and other birds and fish and snails and trees and shrubs and flowers, and to us humans.
There, I met a woman and her dogs and I took a photo of them by request, and we talked about the water level and the ducks and the beauty. After she left, I collected some water in a jar for my altar at home, and I collected a few pebbles as offerings on my ancestor altar.
The spring equinox is still not a time of year that I connect to deeply or understand fully. I am still trying to build a relationship with this season and to listen to what the earth is telling me and what lessons it can offer.
– Alban Eiler 2022 post
– Orchard Beach in May 2013 post
– Late Winter 2023 & Early Spring 2023 posts
See more photos of my visit to the park on Instagram @emabeesart
EmaBee's Art 