The earth was turned over, scraped by the imprint of tiny claws.

I could smell the dank tang of loamy soil. Off to the side lay at least four of the sixty daffodil bulbs I had planted, the hopefulness of their green shoots already yellowing and cracked as they lay marooned on their sides, baking in the afternoon sun.

Squirrels I learned are irresistibly drawn to the smell of newly turned earth. They plow downward with their petite yet powerful paws dislodging ponderous bulbs at will. They blithely scurry away, tales twitching in mischievous delight, holding no reverence or respect for my fervent wish for spring daffodils.

I wish I could scurry away too, unperplexed at the thought of potential trouble. Too often I find myself with toes dug into the dirt, frozen with the possibility that the bulbs might not come up, doubting regenerative growth in the face of an uprooting.  

I used to believe that if I planted the bulbs with the greatest of care, digging the hole deep and wide, applying dollops of fertilizer, encasing each vulnerable bulb in the embrace of rich soil, no harm would come to them. I believed I was powerful enough in my care, that my worry about the possibility of squirrels could prevent trouble, dislodge grief.  And yet the squirrels came anyway and I exhausted myself trying to keep them out.

It’s a mystery why some bulbs are prematurely unearthed while others persist, cradling their nascent bloom and coaxing it steadily to the surface We instinctively recoil from this reality, relentless in our pursuit to understand all. We are uncomfortable with the juxtaposition of living a mortal life with the certainty we will one day die. We lose our capacity to humble ourselves before hard truths we are incapable of understanding with our human minds. We lose our reverence for awe and mystery.  

If we live our lives in awe of that which we are humanly incapable of understanding, we experience both fear and wonder.

Lately I have been seeking ways to meet mystery with less fear and more wonder. The poet Emily Dickinson writes, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.”  I don’t think it’s a mistake that Dickinson characterizes Hope as a bird because I believe spending time in nature has much to teach us about how to live with less fear if we are willing to pay attention.

Nature continually regenerates itself in the face of uprooting. With each change of season, the natural world presents us with a choice. Do we focus on the frozen soil of Winter brittle as  honeycomb or the unseen filaments of Spring so small and vulnerable thriving underneath? 

 I’ve been spending more time outside, focusing my attention on all the mini-mysteries around me – the knobby symmetry on the turret of the smallest seashell, the smattering of pink spray on the throat of a wildflower, the tart sweetness of a strawberry. 

To live at the level of soul that Dickinson speaks of, we have to acknowledge our humility before a force we don’t have the capacity to understand and trust in the promise of regeneration even if to our human eyes the ground is littered with the detritus of decay.

Even if what we take in through our senses attempts to bully us into despair and breaks our hearts. In pursuit of awe, we trust in the potential for the technicolor of daffodils even in the face of an antiseptic, angular winter overrun by squirrels.