Hawthorn Hill Journal by Richard deRosa

The Comfort of Our Eternal Patterns

Hal Borland, a writer whose wisdom I often turn to, frequently referred to nature’s eternal patterns. Up here on the hill, we always look forward to those recurring patterns. Years ago, when we first spotted a nesting pair of Canada geese at the swamp down the road, we named them Max and Myrna. They are there now, their fuzzy little goslings in tow. Their reappearance gives us some solace about the nature of things. Something many of us find ourselves desperately in need of these days. Whether or not these are the original geese does not matter. What matters is the comfort they afford us. And the fact that the patterns persist. Life would be a tough row to hoe without some degree of predictability.

There are those who would extol the virtues of chaos. A little bit goes a long way. I am gratified by the return not only of Max and Myrna, but by the equally reassuring return of several pairs of bluebirds and the oriole whose early spring aria fills one with a sense of hope. Other familiars fly about the place searching out nesting sites setting the stage for the most crucial recurring pattern: procreation. And then there are those early spring chores we start to look forward to about mid-winter. All is ebb and flow.

Predictability is essential to spiritual stability. For most of our history we have been able, despite the execrable behaviors of some, to base our collective lives on certain assumptions. I write here of birds and spring chores because they are part and parcel of what have always been nature’s patterns. We depend on some certainties if we are to function with any degree of stability. The boat gets rocked from time to time. Much of the time we are able to ballast ourselves remarkably well. The question we face these days is how to find stability within the whirlwind of chaos.