Tag Archives: spring

An Earth Day Celebration (or a View from the Kitchen Sink)

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A sunburst of forsythia billows in the breeze. A rabbit hops along and stops to twitch her nose before darting into the yellow ruffled cave. A cardinal, so red that he glows, perches on top of the cave, adding heat to the flowered flame. He looks at you, then looks away, then looks at you again before leaping into the air with outstretched wings. Your heart leaps along with him. He adds color wherever he goes.

For Earth Day, remember to breathe everything in and listen. The Earth is quieter now. It’s easier to listen. We all share this home. We includes all the lives that make this planet everything it is. All the lives that keep us alive. All the lives that contribute their songs.

While celebrating, consider giving to an environmental organization that’s working to make this planet a better, healthier place to be. Here are a few top-rated favorites:

Audubon Society

Oceana

Ocean Conservancy

Environmental Defense Fund

Happy Earth Day to all!

Sheila Hurst is the author of Ocean Echoes, an award-winning novel about a marine biologist who gives up on love to study jellyfish. A percentage from the sale of this book will go toward nonprofit organizations working to protect the world’s oceans for future generations.

Melting Into Words

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melting leaf

Frozen gray skies melt into blue. Signs of life appear: a singing stream, babbling birds, ducks visiting the birdfeeder.

visiting ducks

ducks in the woods

Ducks don’t usually visit a house in the woods. But somehow, these ducks sniffed out the birdseed from their lakeside home. Now the springtime sound of chirping combines with quacks, reminding me how funny life can be.

frozen pond

As the snow glaciers retreat, we smell the Earth again. It smells like life. We inhale it. Slices of green delight poke through the ground, waiting to bloom. Cranberry bogs that served as skating rinks over the winter are thawing out.

cranberry bog

I’ve been revising and tinkering with the novel through the winter, but it still seemed frozen into place while I knew it needed more. Lately though, whatever was frozen has been melting into words. Whether our words drip or flood in, it’s progress. Every word, every revision, brings us closer to a finished book. It takes time but that’s true for anything worth doing. If your words were frozen over the winter, I hope they’re melting.

stream

“Spring drew on…and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.” – Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“As long as I live, I’ll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I’ll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I’ll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can.” – John Muir

Happy Spring! Have you ever had a pet duck? Does the weather affect your creativity?

Secret Garden

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a secret garden hidden
buds hold tight within themselves
through winter days and nights
explodes with sudden laughter
in puffs of white delight
and with a lingering chuckle
petaled memories fly
free of clinging branches
into the brightening sky

“And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Anais Nin

“Earth laughs in flowers.” Ralph Waldo Emerson