One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring.
A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence. A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges.”
— Aldo Leopod, “March” A Sand County Almanac
In 2018 I left a graphic design and communication firm that I helped create. Leaving the work I did for 15 years at RavenMark, work I loved doing, set me adrift. I hadn’t realized how much my identity was tied to the business, to my partner, to our non-profit clients, to the work itself. What direction should I head in now?
Each year in the early Spring and late Autumn I watch and listen for the flocks of branta canadensis, Canada geese, to cross the sky, honking their signals to each other. These bi-annual migrations are nature’s primordial signs of change. In the Spring the migration declares the rebirth of plants, the emergence of hibernating animals, the birth of young. In Autumn as days grow shorter and colder, the migrating birds announce plant life going dormant, some animals begin to look for places to sleep while others look for places where they will find food. For me it marks a withdrawing into a quieter time, a time possibly of finding a way to that “hole in the lake” at least by Spring
It is doubtful that I can claim the title of “prophet,” but there is no doubt that the bridge was burnt to a crisp.
Like the goose, I was flying in the pitch-black darkness, but unlike the goose, I had no idea of what direction I should go in. I’m sure animals experience fear, but do they experience doubt? I wouldn’t think they had this purely sapient luxury, if it can be called that. It is either do or die. Doubt is purely a human existential emotion and, I must say, a damn burden — that we had the capacity to just live without questioning. Life without the knowing of existence.
Even young, first-year birds can find their winter home without ever having been there before! Would, could, I have the same animal instinct to land where I find my winter breeding ground, my creative place? That is the question.