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Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com

Published - Thursday, May 01, 2008

A flower gently pushes through the clatter of a natureless week

By Joe Orso | La Crosse Tribune

Most mornings these days, before my alarm clock rings, birds perched outside the windows awaken me.

Sometimes as I try to fall back asleep, I smile at their persistence. And sometimes I open my eyes and see birds alighting on a cherry tree on a cloth painting on the wall. And sometimes I am so tired I just hear the birds.

But every morning when this happens, I awaken how I wish I could always awaken: gratefully.

And then, because I am not skilled at getting out of bed, my alarm clock explodes into the day, and my heart tightens, and I know exactly what time it is. And I think of my calendar and calculate whether I can afford to set the alarm for another 20 minutes. And thoughts of appointments and deadlines descend into my mind, and the rest of the day is dominated by a computer screen, a car or a phone, or thinking about what comes next on the day’s schedule.

It’s a rare human who does not feel awe or is not reminded of God when nature encounters them. But the opportunities for these encounters can be few when you live in the city and so much of your day is dominated by the processing of information.

Even during Earth Week, the alarm, the calendar and the computer got ahold of me, and it took a midweek e-mail for a flower to reach through the wilderness and find me.

It came from Chuck Hatfield, who recently photographed the pasque flower, found in the high goat prairies of the Kickapoo River Valley.

Chuck had told me about the flower when I ran into him Monday evening.

I’d been intrigued.

The next day, in an e-mail primarily about some business concerning an upcoming Lutheran assembly, Chuck sent photos of the delicate, purple flower and told me about it: that the name pasque means Easter; that the flower blooms briefly in late March, often pushing through snow; that Greeks attributed the flower’s origin to the tears of Venus; and that Lakota Sioux call the plant a word that means “child’s navel.”

Tears welled up in me as I read the words and opened the attached photos.

I e-mailed Chuck back, and before getting to our business, got to the flower: “Chuck, thank you for the photos of the flowers, and the stories around them. They settled my heart in the midst of a disjointed and mostly natureless week.”

He began his e-mail reply: “Good morning, Joe. Except for my e-mail to you, I am also trapped in a similar week. My very soul is demanding a hike to view the unfolding of the pasque flower’s short annual history, but I am immersed in ‘important’ and unavoidable obligations.”

And even now, sitting in front of these words, the pasque flowers bloom out there for another week or so.

Joe Orso can be reached at jorso@lacrossetribune.com or (608) 791-8429.

Another perspective

Terry Gips, an ecologist and author who has worked in the White House, read this poem by Marcie Hans during an Earth Week presentation at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse on Wednesday.

“Fueled”

Fueled

by a million

man-made

wings of fire —

the rocket tore a tunnel

through the sky —

and everybody cheered.

Fueled

only by a thought from God —

the seedling

urged its way

through the thickness of black —

and as it pierced

the heavy ceiling of the soil —

and launched itself

up into outer space —

one

even

clapped.

Gips then talked about how astronauts have described seeing the Earth from space as a transformative experience.

“It’s not bad to be a human,” Gips said. “We are actually part of the natural cycle.”