Spring is Coming and Magic Is Afoot

The first signs of spring and new life are coming to the west coast of Ireland

I have been living in the past for the last twelve weeks as I delved into the recesses of my memory to give birth to the story of my life in Kabul, Afghanistan, from 1976 to 1978. This is a story I have wanted to put into writing for the last 40 years and now it is done.

Today I am eager to bring my awareness back into the present, where the first signs of spring are beginning to appear on this island I call home. On 1 February, Ireland celebrated Imbolc/St. Brigid’s Day, which was the traditional beginning of spring for the ancient Celts. Although most of the days are still gray with rain, the light is definitely returning, and if you look carefully, signs of new life are everywhere.

My husband and I put a pond in the yard in front of our house five years ago—when we first moved to the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry—and it has become an endless source of delight. From now until late fall, I walk out every morning to see how the pond is changing and what kind of plants and insects are beginning to make their appearance.

The most exciting event so far this year is that the pond suddenly exploded with frogs! In prior years, maybe two or three pairs found their way into its cool depths, laid their spawn, and quickly departed. For the last two weeks, however, the pool has had so many frogs that it has been hard to count them!

I started keeping binoculars on the windowsill in the living room so I could watch, and one day I counted at least 50 frogs lining the edges of the entire pond, their heads popping up and down, making ripples in the water as they moved.

And then they were gone. Yesterday 50 frogs, today zero. I have no idea where they went or how they exited the pond. Did they all leave en masse in the middle of the night? Hop out one by one? I only know that they are gone now.

Today we are experiencing the misty Irish rain that falls softly on the earth. I decided to take a tour of our garden, so I rolled up the bottoms of my pants, put on a coat, and walked outside. My bare feet quickly sank into the pools of water covering the bog we call a yard.

The first thing I noticed was the rock wall to the left of our house, which divides our property into lower and upper sections. To my surprise and delight, the wall was covered with foxglove. We hardly had any foxglove last year, but it looks like this spring will bring a bumper crop of beautiful purple spikes.

I continued walking past the rock wall to the hedge row that borders our property and saw that the first leaves were beginning to appear on a young hawthorn tree we planted five years ago.

Heading toward the back of the house, I walked to another rock wall that divides the property into upper and lower halves. The rocks here are not covered with foxglove, but with beautiful mosses and lichens that grow all year round. The new shoots of at least three varieties of ferns will soon be making their appearance as well.

I also found an empty white eggshell on our lawn that I believe comes from a woodpigeon. The delicate shell made me particularly happy because it is such a wonderful sign of early spring and new life.

The ancient Celts believed that rocks, mountains, streams, bogs, trees, birds, fish and animals were alive with spirit and intelligence and that human beings could communicate with all of them.

I really like this worldview because it brings magic, mystery and interconnectedness to the way I see and interact with the world. It makes me responsible for helping to protect the earth, for doing what I can in my own little corner of it to support and nurture all living things.

This is why we put in the pond, planted some trees, and let our 1/4 acre yard grow wild and free. After five years of experience, I know that thigh-high grasses and wildflowers of every shape, size and color will soon be arriving to provide food and shelter for the swarms of birds, bees, butterflies, moths, dragonflies, worms, caterpillars and ants that will arrive with them.

This is why these first hints of spring make me so happy and why I know that magic is truly afoot.