Whenever we look in the world of matter and events outside ourselves we find that oscillations and wave motions have a significant, often dominant role. It is not, therefore, astonishing to find that waves play an important part in ourselves also.

Archibald Hill

NOTES FOR THE THIRD WEEK OF LATE SPRING
THE TWENTY-FOURTH WEEK OF THE NATURAL YEAR

WHEN DUCKLINGS AND GOSLINGS SWIM THE RIVERS AND PONDS

WHEN PEONIES AND MOCK ORANGE OPEN

AND IRIS REACH FULL BLOOM

Entering its final quarter on May 5, the Rhubarb Pie Moon gives up all its early rhubarb and becomes the Duckling and Gosling Moon at 8:04 p.m. on May 13. By that date, almost half of the ducklings and goslings of 2010 will have been born. At the full of the moon on May 27, almost the entire spring hatch will be out of the nest.

Rising in the morning and setting in the afternoon, the dark moon moves overhead (its most powerful position) in the middle in the day.

On May 9, the sun reaches three-fourths of the way to summer solstice. Eleven days later, it will have traveled nine-tenths of the way to the third week in June.

Throughout the week ahead, blue forget-me-nots, golden ragwort, water cress, wild geranium, swamp buttercup, white spring cress, wild purple phlox , sweet rocket, fleabane, golden seal, Solomon's seal, columbine, golden Alexander, sweet Cicely, daisy, fire pink, common plantain, horseradish, black medic, star of Bethlehem, lupine, lily-of-the-valley, sweet William, meadow goat’s beard, May apple, wood hyacinth, sedum, and wood sorrel are almost always open.

THOREAU REVISITED
When I first read the journals of the 19th century naturalist, Henry David Thoreau, I kept looking for something that wasn’t there.

Even though I was interested enough in his notes about nature, I wanted him to tell more about himself. I thought all his observations about the thickness of ice at Walden Pond or about the dates the asters bloomed were frivolous. I wanted him to talk, just once, about his most secret passions. I wanted him to stop hiding behind the natural world.

Then I started keeping my own notebook and found my history of the year was more important to me than many other kinds of history I'd encountered.

Starting from an old assumption that the course of the seasons can be a metaphor for the process of human life, I saw that the closer observation of that metaphor revealed personal parallels I hadn't thought about before.

Each entry in the notebook, the times of cardinal song, the measurements of leaves, the dates of blossom and petal fall, not only contributed to my idea of a grand design, but gave me insights into all the minor, isolated actions that I used to feel were meaningless.

The more closely I looked at what was happening in the woods, the more I understood the extent of the metaphor, the more I understood myself - and Thoreau.