Blackie and weather predictions

Yesterday I wore sandals for the first time. To be more accurate -for the first time this year I wore sandals outside.  I, as anyone who knows me knows, I wear sandals in school all year ‘round. But I do not think that I have ever worn sandals so early in the year outside.

To be honest it was a bit nippy on my naked toes at 7:30 in the morning. Not unbearable – but not that comfortable either. My usual rule is- if my hands don’t need gloves then my feet don’t need socks; my hands were in my pockets because they were a bit cold. But I wore the sandals because I knew at 4:00 when I was done for the day that it would be spring like, if not early summer like, and my feet would resent having socks and shoes on.

But this is too early for such nice weather. Last week driving around somewhere in southern Ontario I saw a flock – yes that is right a flock of robins!  And just a few days ago when it rained I could smell the fresh smell that only spring rain has. That smell and of course the smell of melting/dissolving dog poop are sure signs of spring. Again I say it is too early.

If I could be convinced that the Gods of Weather were not playing a trick on us (and therefore we are going to get one hell of a storm at some point in the next few weeks) or if I was sure that there was enough moisture in the ground for the farmers to be successful and for the forest not to burn – I would be delighted. But I am quite sure that all three of those things can and will happen. It is not natural to have a winter that is so without the snow and so without the cold. It feels as if something is wrong in the world.

Of course something is wrong in the world – climate change is a reality. What one could expect and predict with some consistency is no longer true. For over 40 years I have been able to predict/guess with some accuracy when spring was going to arrive. I was taught this skill by a counselor at camp when I was 10 or 11. Blackie was a Mohawk from the First Nation community of Kanesatake near Montreal. Blackie somehow recognized that even at that age I would be walking a slightly different path than most of my peers, and he showed me it was okay to be different.  Predicting when spring would arrive was a secret that he shared with me – and for the most part I have kept that secret.  But this year for the first time – I didn’t hear and see what I needed to see and hear to predict when spring would be here. I am sad about that. We should all be sad. Not because some ancient way of knowing the world may no longer be useful, but because the world is changing and there seem to be so few people who care why, and even fewer people who prepared to invest the time and the energy to understand how this new world will work.