Oh, for goodness’ sake! Everything is sprouting. I look outside and see a world still encased by snow, slightly settled and diminished since the big storm, only to be replenished. By the calendar I know that soon it will be the rising of the sap and time for maple sugaring; there’s no hint of quickening yet. Inside my kitchen, though, there are sprouts galore. We don’t have a particularly good storage system, but we’ve been thrilled to eat our own carrots until just this week; some potatoes and sweet potatoes, too. But the last carrots began to sprout tender ferny fronds and the potatoes are extending long sprouts searching for light. Garlic cloves are sprouting, too.
I’m always caught off guard when February brings unexpected signs of new life among our houseplants. A few, like my mother’s Christmas cactus, and the curious but spectacular Friendship lily, choose to bloom over winter. But other plants appear dormant until they surprise me with their responses to slightly more light — a new shoot, a new leaf, a sudden shift in coloration, an exploring tendril. The annual surprise lifts my mood, especially in years when there’s deep cold or the groundhog sees his shadows.
I recently finished one of the most frightening books I’ve ever read: “Fire Weather” by John Vaillant. He recounts in excruciating detail a fire in 2016 in the heart of Canada’s Alberta tar sands country. The fire was so intense houses incinerated in less than five minutes; only ash remained. Firefighters were astonished by what they faced, and found they had no tools, including the heaviest equipment, that could slow the conflagration. In just as exhaustive detail he traces the chemical and physical reactions at work, highlighting why modern structures are so vulnerable, and even older stone structures are unable to withstand the fearsome heat. He then turns his spotlight on the nearly century of scientific findings and warnings that have been sounded in studies, conferences domestic and international, public statements and testimony before Congress and parliaments. He clearly traces the complicity of politicians who decided aiding and abetting this global pillaging of fossil fuels was the way to retain power and money; and he skewers the industry itself which decided to double down with lies to milk the last profits before our planet becomes unlivable.
Though the book mentions no names, we can clearly see the path from Reagan’s push to deregulate everything, pointing to government as our main problem rather than corporate rapaciousness and immorality. We can see how the Biden administration took some small steps to counteract the the prior administration’s relentless efforts to continue the pillage. Now we see how the current administration is literally fueling the fire. There seems no escape route based on the exacting reporting of the reality we have created.
But then the author recounts returning to Alberta after parts of the fire were finally extinguished and amidst the near-total destruction in several locations, he sees, of all things, tulip and amaryllis plants pushing up and blooming through the blackened ashy soil. He also documents legal actions around the world, especially by youth, that have begun to gain traction. And spontaneous divestment from coal, tar, oil and gas is speeding up as money managers and insurance companies finally acknowledge their fiscal risk, if not the global plight they have been funding.
Finally he turns to the work of Sister Hildegard, the 12th century Benedictine nun who was fascinated by what she called viriditas or, as Vaillant describes it, “greening energy.” She noted this energetic impulse as the determinative spirit of all living things, even in the face of disaster. It is this characteristic of human nature, even more so of all living nature, where the intense urge to life is ascendent.
I see it in my houseplants; I find it in the nourishing harvest of our garden; it burns in the freeze-defying resistance to ICE in Minnesota, and in Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland. It glows in the determination to revive our democracy and replant our communities with the greening of possibility. This inherent regenerative impulse is nature’s model — an invitation, as Vaillant puts it — for us to follow. Not consumption and destruction, but renewal and growth.
Let’s give thanks for the sprouts. Then let’s dedicate ourselves to nourishing them into the full blooming rescue of our democracy and our planet.
Judy Wagner lives in Northfield.