Week 14 : The Wind’s First Word
A Nitrogen Hymn
Reflection
As time draws us along the vernal axis another micro season is announced by the gentle swaying of the pendulous alder catkins.
These seeds pods of a most typical of BC tree are monoecious bearing both male and female parts, representing a natural balance of opposites, and the importance of maintaining both masculine and feminine energies; allowing the coming together of disparate parts of ourselves, such as action and receptivity, or strength and vulnerability.
The swaying movement of the pendulous male catkins encourage reflection on how to respond to shifts and changes in life, as well as the concept of emotional fluidity - not holding onto emotions, but allowing them to move through you.
As a pioneer species, the Alder moves into wet, "unusable" land and improves the soil, making it possible for other life to follow. This mirrors the spring theme of new beginnings and building foundations for future growth.
Alder trees are known for their strength, being used to build foundations or bridge water, yet their catkins are beautifully delicate and soft in spring. True strength can exist alongside softness.
Evidence & Ecology
At the edge of a river or wetland, where land meets water, is where you will find the habitat of alder trees. They love to grow in damp, boggy places that ensure saturated roots are able to form dense nets to stabilize banks.
This nitrogen-fixing pioneer species enriches soil, and provides habitats for mosses and lichens. The symbiosis between the subterranean Frankia bacteria and the roots of the alder allows the tree to pull nitrogen from the atmosphere and return it to the soil through its fallen leaves and catkins. These humble, short lived trees create life sustaining land out of watery and degraded landscapes preparing the way for the key species of a BC forest - Douglas fir, Western Red Cedar and Pine of all types.
As wind pollinated trees their pendulous, flexible shape is designed to catch the breeze. When the timing is right they release billions of pollen grains in search of a female counterpart.
The catkins appearance in early spring, before leaves on other trees emerge is strategic. By blooming early the alder ensures that its pollen won’t be blocked in its search for its reproductive destination.
While the pollen bursting forth “confetti style” is not considered the most efficient method for dispersal, this mechanism has an exceptionally important role - ensuring the forest remains genetically resilient and diverse.
While designed for the wind, catkins are essential in the survival for early-season fauna. They provide an essential early source of pollen and nectar for bees waking from hibernation. Birds of this ecosystem - siskin, goldfinches and grouse - also rely on the catkins themselves for protein and sugars essential for a nutritional boost after a meagre winter. This acts as a “bridge” in the hunger gap of late winter.
How do you enrich the environments around you?
Where does your flexibility show up?
Where are you receptive and open to opportunity?
What do you offer to enrich the “soil” around you?
Embodying Practice
Embodied Nature Meditation
The Pendulum Swing
Stand with feet hip-width apart. If that is not available to you, find a seated position and ensure your feet are firmly on the floor, and that you have space to move your upper body and arms.
Imagine your spine as the trunk of an alder tree, feeling in to the strength and stability of your core.
As you inhale visualize the catkins on your branches beginning to grow and lengthen. Invite your neck and shoulders to soften.
Gently swing your arms and upper torso side to side imitating the movement of catkins in early spring breezes….
Story of Place
A Conversation with the Season
Song of the Alder
Early spring in the BC coastal forest is an exercise in tuning in to the subtle signs of awakening. The previous year’s flora may be firmly holding in place, yet to decompose even though wilted and yellowing.
New growth often needs to be sought out, poking through sludgy leaf litter, scattered cones and the windfall of branches torn off during intense winter storms.
Yet witnessing alder, and their prominent dangling catkins breathing in the spring air only requires a subtle lift of the head and a scan of the surrounding canopy.
This early indicator of spring’s arrival places them at the starting gate of a new season of growth with the rhythmic swaying of catkins reminding you of what’s possible even as it occurs against a dark sky amidst a cold wind.
Many Indigenous nations of the west coast respect the alder as a “pioneer” species, and the tree invokes its name in this early arrival, both calendrically and into an unhospitable environment. Walking amongst the giants of the BC forest - the cedars, pines and fir - is only possible due to the alder rooting into watery and soil deprived landscapes, fixing the nitrogen, and creating nutrient rich soils that go on to support the prototypical giants. These woody alchemists pull nitrogen out of thin air making the land ready for a new generation; a new species. They are the perfect harmonizers in a choir of many, creating a perfect pitch that everyone can tune into.
The tree is considered a healer - of both the land and the human body. The bark of alder is respected and sought out for its anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties; treating tuberculosis, stomach ailments and skin infections. When cut, the tree itself appears to bleed, with its sap turning from white to a deep-rust red. Thus also invoking the qualities of blood, vitality and life force. In Indigenous and Celtic lore this “blood” marks this more than human kin as a protector, reminding us that life flows through all alive beings; event those seen as dormant or fallow....
The Invitation
Nature Kinship
Weekly nature connection practices aligned seasonally to engage with your locale. Encouraging immersion, appreciation and spiritual attunement with the more than human world around you.
Always remember to enjoy these practices within the bounds of your physical and ecological limits (do not sit outside when it’s -40, or walk on slippery surfaces), practice “leave no trace” and mindful reciprocity (take only what you need, ask permission from the earth, and only leave what is naturally biodegradable)
Expressive Arts Ritual
Weaving Resilience with Alder
In the quiet of early spring, the Alder is a beacon of transition. Long before the forest turns green, its catkins drape like delicate fringe. They are symbols of endurance and early-season courage.
Begin by walking beneath the Alders, specifically seeking out catkins, twigs or other items that have been released by the wind. These fallen fragments are gifts from the natural world and metaphors for what we have shed. Do not source anything that is still attached.
Find a quiet spot to sit with your found gifts. Guided by your intuition begin weaving the catkins or other bits of nature you have found into a temporary sculpture; something that wants to be expressed through you. It does not need to make sense…..
A Final Note
Closing Invocation
“In every winter’s heart there is a quivering spring, and behind the veil of each night…there is a smiling dawn.”
Singing the Earth
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Nature. Connected.
