dormancy

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The farm has frozen up again. The slick film of water that was on on the river yesterday is just another layer of ice under the new snow. I'm going to sweep off a section and skate, at least a little ways away with Joanie Mitchell in my head. I do have a river, but I can't skate away; My cows and the beautiful soil, dormant in the rye under the snow, keep me anchored here. I am another organism here with some ingenuity to thaw out by the fire, and some basic nature to sleep. Thaw and freeze, awaken and sleep...
And by the fire I think: What about the soil organisms? The soil bacteria, the fungus, the arthropods? Where do the earthworms go? I am slightly jealous of the Indian and Australian garden bloggers descibing their warm lush gardens. But here in the Northern hemisphere we rest and metabolize in the slowest of fashion. We hold the lifeforce precious in the fold of sleeping tissue. We are potential yet realized. We are a powerful thing yet to come.
The life that is so very alive but silent, holding, surviving, potent in its dormancy: it will rise again and burst out in its brilliancy. Wait for it! It will transform us. It is like the activists among us. We are here. We may be dormant. But we will rise. So rest, metabolize slowly, and get ready!