EVERY WINTER HAS ITS SPRING Ever notice the power of the sun to create a smile? In the auto parts store on Saturday, the clerk told me that everyone who came in had a smile on his or her face. It didn't matter that their cars were not working. The fact was that the sun was shining and it was like spring outside. The good news is that every winter has its spring. T.S. Eliot found spring to be a strange time. In "The Waste Land" he wrote: April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. When I was much younger, I wondered if spring was indeed a cruel time. Anyone who lives in the northern tier of Penn's Woods knows how difficult March can be. We get teased each day. Six days of sunshine this past week however, drove away many of my dark humours. Each must judge for himself whether or not this is true. Robert Frost's vision of spring was more optomistic. In "Spring Pools" he wrote: The trees that have it in their pent-up buds To darken nature and be summer woods-- Let them think twice before they use their powers To blot out and drink up and sweep away These flowery waters and these watery flowers From snow that melted only yesterday. Chief Windwalker told me once, "The Great Spirit thaws the ice to cleanse the earth. And in this thawing, we too are cleansed. Ah, the power of Father Sun so far away in the way up sky. It's an eternal gift. And once upon a time, my people came here to feast upon the spring squab. Pigeons flooded the sky and roosted in the trees everywhere around the great Allegheny. It was a different river then, and the forests were all beeches and oaks. Through the sun and its heat, my people were given the eternal gift - hope." Awakening to sunshine for six straight days made the week last forever. It reminded me of living in Colorado. In the first three months I was there I only saw clouds once and only for a short period of time. A spring storm blew in one afternoon, dumped several inches of rain upon the earth, and then raced away to the Great Plains. Most Coloradans were happy most of the time - smiling, letting the sun works its magic within them. Saturday was a treat of a day. While Cheryl shopped, I sat on a ledge in the doorway of the Quality Market in Kane and just watched happy people. Everyone who came past smiled at me and said hello. I didn't see a sour face all morning. Every human voice I heard had a special quality to it. Faulkner once said, "...When the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his (man's) puny inexhaustible voice, still talking...I believe that man will not only endure, he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance." Even when I couldn't get Ethan's car started many hours later, I didn't lose hope. How could I given the nature of the day. All I had to do was sit down on the bumper, look up into the sky, and realize that it was great to be alive. A small river ran down Pattison Avenue in front of me. I thought of the movie, "A River Runs Through It" and realized that I didn't need to be in the wilds of Montana to appreciate the joy of what was the purest expression of beauty for all of us who live wrapped in winter's white blanket: the first rivulet of melting snow preparing us for another growing season. When dusk finally began closing in I realized that it was well after 6 pm and so the year-long day of winter was rapidly drawing to a close. Saturday only had about 11 hours of daylight, and yet it seemed an eternity. Perhaps that's why Easter makes spring so special. The juxtaposition of eternal life during a human experience of eternal renewal provides even the agnostic with something to ponder. I've often wondered why February is so short. How did the Romans know that people a half world away would someday appreciate its brevity? I'm not sure, but in only eight days it will be March and mudtime in the mountains. Give me the mud. We certainly don't get it like they do in California. I was shocked by the mud slides in Malibu. Cars were inundated with tons of gooey brown earth washed down from the charred hills. California may no longer be the "Golden State." We are richer when you balance the natural checkbook. Last week I needed to change my password on the computer network at work. I used "Spring" as my password. Two days later the temperatures were in the 60's. Now, that's the kind of self- fulfilling prophecy that I like. Maybe this week I'll change it again and use "More Spring." If it worked once why not try it again? Windwalker asked me if sometime this year I would undertake a spiritual journey with him. Part of the experience is to go into the sweat lodge. I said I would love to go with him. Native people say that if a person can make it to the seventh steaming, visions are not uncommon. I can hardly wait. I wonder if there will be squab afterward? Isn't it the contrast which excites most of us? If we enjoyed warm weather all the time, we'd never appreciate a 60 degree day. Given the 22 below days of just a month ago, this contrast makes the weather cycle tolerable and enchanting. Have you ever noticed the strange insects which hatch on the first warm day? They look like mosquitoes. They don't bite. Like the other animals still living in the frozen forests, they just hover above the snow. They are harbingers of things to come. Last week I cut another dead tree down in anticipation of a prolonged winter. Now, I may not need it. What a treat! I thought I'd need to cut a few more before I could finally store away my splitting maul for the season. Thank God for small miracles. Isn't it true then, the spring thaw is a miracle of sorts. Frozen water becomes liquid again, and in just a few months, will begin to steam when it returns to the earth as rain falling on sun-baked asphalt highways. Yet, I am still waiting for my favorite sound of the year. No, it's not the human voice, nor the gobbling of wild turkey, nor the cracking of the ice upon Spring Creek. It's the cheery singing of the spring peepers. They won't make their stage appearance until all the snow is gone and the temperature rises to 70 degrees for about two days. There is nothing in the natural world that rivals their special song. Well, then again, I do enjoy the soft melodies of the robins, and the gurgling of the water over the rocks in the creek, and the rumbling of the strong March winds through the Red Pine plantations near me, and the hooting of the owls on Spring Mountain just above our home, and.... Ah, the power of the sun to create a smile and all the rest of this. Yes, the good news is that every winter has its spring.