Nature Speaks: Unfurling

Sword Fern Fiddlehead “Nest"

Nature Speaks: Unfurling

(Article and photos by Jennifer Rotermund)

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.  - Goethe

In the Pacific Northwest, April showers bring April flowers. Mother Earth doesn't feel the need to make us wait another month; she rewards our faith in the changing seasons expeditiously. Life giving water coaxes out the most delicate Spring blossoms and then wildly paints the world in every imaginable shade of green. 

Sword Fern Fiddleheads Unfurling

I find myself drawn every April out into our temperate rainforest on the peninsula, where the trees measure life in centuries rather than hours. To walk through a Northwest old growth forest on a rainy day in April is to indulge the primal part of you that is still connected to everything. The heady musk of the forest floor is awakened by Spring rains and wafts up to greet you, sweeping away the stresses of daily life, and enticing you ever forward into the presence of giants I thank everything holy still exist. To be in the immediate presence of 500+ year old Western Red Cedar is to simultaneously experience divinity, while being transported to a time that even our eldest elders have long forgotten in their stories of wisdom. It is the essence of primal reawakening for me. I am stirred and moved. Something within lights up, is renewed and reborn. This is Spring in its most basic purity. 

Unfurling Lady Ferns

Spring is the time of the East, the air element, when the birds remind us of youth with their new songs of courtship. As Spring comes into full bloom, so too have we come full circle through the seasons and are beginning anew. Turning away from what no longer serves us, the fresh air of Spring inspires us to take those first steps on shaky new legs into something new. If we listen closely to Mother Earth, we hear her encouragement to be bold. 

April to me is best represented by the Fern plant and the simple act of unfurling. To unfurl is to make or become spread out from a rolled or a folded state, especially in order to be open to the wind. Easiest to spot as the ground cover in our old forests, our native Sword Fern (Polystichum munitum) holds tight all Winter at its core to a rounded nest of fiddleheads, which begin to gracefully lift and unfurl in April, expanding to their full breath and width in lustrous kelly green. Edible Ostrich Fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) and Lady Fern (Athyrium felix-femina) fiddleheads faithfully extend tender new fronds into April's first chilly mornings in bright bursts of chartreuse. 

Unfurling Lady Ferns

Inspired by the teachings of the ferns and the wisdom of the trees, I ask myself, what are the ways in which my life is unfurling and opening as I face each day? As the sun travels a progressively higher arc in the sky, and the days swiftly lengthen, with my feet firmly rooted into life, how do I expand myself newly to meet the opportunity of each new day? I chose to be bold and to follow what inspires me most.

Jennifer Rotermund is the owner of Gaiaceous Gardens (an urban farming and wildlife gardening business with a teaching garden/urban farm and certified wildlife habitat/ sanctuary located in Shoreline). She is a Permaculture Designer, is certified by the National Wildlife Federation as a Habitat Steward and serves as a Docent at the Kruckeberg Garden. She is also an ordained minister with a particular focus on earth-based forms of spirituality.