THE WINDSINGER

The Great Blue Norther is Coming - can you hear it?

Winter is wailing and the wind is its Voice - let us welcome the WindSinger.

Snowflakes may fall, and it will be considered a sign of winter; likewise, the lowered clouds with their nebulous grays and dramatic rolls are considered to be wintery, a mood maker for dark thoughts and gothic yearnings. But it is the WindSinger that chants the Winter song in Texas, a low, persistent chorus, the plaintive moan from the ancient hollow trunks of the Navasota Valley.

You can hear the Wind coming all the way from the North Pole, a straight shot. No mountains, no forests, no great inland oceans to impede it; just the wide open prairie and the weight of Arctic Air, the Blue Norther rolling down the continent to visit Mexico and stay for the Winter; as it rambles along, it sings the song of the Wind, rumbling, roaring -

When you hear it coming, go and prepare a place.

Make sure it is Daytime; the Night belongs to the Night Creatures. Even so, take your gun - there are Feral Hogs about, and they can be dangerous. Leave the Back Yard, past the Chicken House, find your way to the Back Pasture. It was once a Cotton Patch, terraced and farmed by enterprising young farmers. Their legacy of Arrowhead Clover and Purple Vetch still pops up in the spring, amidst the tufts of silver bluestem and gramagrass. But the grass is short and frostbitten now - you can pass between the clumps easily as they sleep, waiting for Spring.

The Goats will follow you - do not mind them, but be aware that they can get pushy from time to time. You will meet the Grandfather Oak. He grows next to the secret spring, hidden in the Middle Pond. Be polite, and remember he is old, very old, and has seen more than we will ever know. His branches are twisted like heavy corkscrews, each turn the result of hundreds of years of growth. Before the Settlers lived here, before the Plummers, or the Comanches, the Wichita were here, he was here… reach up and touch the tip of a branch, and perhaps Grandfather will awaken.

Say hello. Perhaps he will remember us.

Keep moving, and head through the pipe gate and into the FAR back Pasture. The gate will squeak; it is part of the ambience. Just make sure to latch it when you go through, because otherwise the Goats will follow you, and this is not their territory -

this is the home of the Wild Things.

Before you lies the Ash Grove. It is a mystic place; a ravine filled with the straight, uniform trunks of Ash, all less than fifty years old. Even in their youth, they have a vibration that defies logic and science. Here the earth becomes hazy, and the air refractive and prismatic. They jostle against each other, waving their arms to the sky, a gift of the Earth from the Mother Ash after the days of the Cotton Patch. She is down close to the back pond, and is the home of the Cougar. Do not approach; she too is old, and may drop a limb if so inclined - or she may drop a cougar. They belong together. Let them have their space.

Keep to the path - it goes through the Hog wallows, down through the ruts of dried creek beds which will become vernal pools, the honeymoon beds for Alligator Snapping Turtles in the Spring. Now they are dried, and filled with Oak and Pecan leaves. Wade through the dry beds, and make your way up the slope, past the back pond where the old timers say Bigfoot was seen in 1973, by your neighbor, who drew a picture. We will not speak of that here, because some say he is still in the bottoms, in that large den on the back of the pond dam.

Up the slope, onto the Sandstone uplift, through the Golden Burro Grass and the Fescue, walk around until you find the Red Sandstone ridge, a rounded outcrop with three marks deeply etched in it, the legacy of those who lived here before us. We do not know what the marks mean - it appears they were sharpening tools, or perhaps it was where someone was driving a tractor and hit it, but… we will let them keep their secrets.

Here, in the shadow of the great twisting Oaks and the rings of Cedars, sit and wait.

Love the sky. The blue rockets into the stratosphere, all the way into outer space. Here among the trees, in this upland clearing, see the connection of this patch of Soil, the workers before you, the laborers on hot days; they too waited here, waiting for the coming of the Winter.

Let the water soothe you. This pond is old, and perhaps has Alligators, but it also has Herons and Egrets, Bitterns and Kingfishers. They too know when Winter approaches, and if you listen, they will tell you…

Lay your hands upon the Earth. You can feel it before you hear it, the rumble of an Atmospheric River, the great tumbling mass of cold rolling down from the Arctic, rushing towards us, visible as a thin line of blue haze on the endless Northern Horizon. You can feel it pulsing up through the rock, into your hands, the heartbeat of the Earth…

it is coming closer.

the moan starts, low at first. You really don’t know if it is a train perhaps, or some other thing; but the train passes, and still the moan permeates the air to the North, a song afar. Clouds spill ahead of the front, a roiling sea of violent mists and lightning strikes, splitting the sky with elemental energy. A hum springs up with it as it draws closer, the Blue Norther, the Great WindSinger, striding the Prairie and racing towards Texas, coming home -

and they all are coming home with the Wind. Rise to greet them: the Old Ones, the Wichita, the Comanche, the Settlers, the Lovers, the Fighters, the Families, the Future -

the Wind is roaring, bringing them home.

The Earth lifts all around us now, the trees, the branches, the swirl of dead leaves rising on the WhirlWind - hair whipping around us, our skirt and sleeves banners to the Four Elements; Earth, Water, Fire and Wind, all together as the Blue Norther blows in, wailing across the Prairie…

lift your hands and welcome the WindSinger.