Is there a special place where you anticipate seasonal change? Do you have favorite plants and animals that return after the Spring Equinox? My spring ritual includes, a daily walk among natives in my gardens. As I stepped outside of my art studio door a couple nights ago, I saw these cinnamon fern fronds tightly bundled from their winter rest. As March turns to April, they slowly release their tightly held coils. I have drawn them in my sketchbook for years, slowing down on a cool spring night, to take in their wondrous, complex energy.
Everything is calling my attention elsewhere in the garden and in the rest of my life. So these quiet moments, sitting with my cinnamon frond friends, observing their elegant stipes, and singularly fringed pinna, are a gift.
I looked for the sketchbook with last year’s cinnamon fern fronds unfurling, and gave myself permission to look closely, be amazed, and start drawing.
