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Ferida Wolff’s Backyard: Geese and Growth

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Geese and Growth

It’s another winter, another year. So many things in nature shift with the seasons. Geese remind us of the coming cold as they honk their way south. The geese have moved to warmer climates by now, which is a good thing. We have had some record cold temps lately. I know they’ll be back in spring but as I watched them take off, I kind of missed them already.

People respond to the change in seasons as well. Someone I know says she is not a winter person. She hunkers inside during the winter weather and waits for the warm summer’s embrace. Another friend relishes the snow and cold and looks forward to getting out her skis. I kind of like the snow myself, even when I have to shovel. We each try to adjust in our own way to what Mother Nature brings.
 
As I looked at the geese honking their way south, I thought about this past year. It hasn’t been an easy time for me but, like the geese instinctively know, I sense it is time to move on. Come the spring the geese will return to familiar surroundings with a new perspective. It sounds like a plan for me, too.
 
As I watched the geese fly off, I wished them well and knew I would look forward to their return.
 
And now I wish everyone a healthy and happy — and rejuvenated — 2018!

Ferida Wolff is the author of 20 children’s books and three essay books, her latest being The Story Blanket (Peachtree Publishers) and Is a Worry Worrying You? (Tanglewood Books)>

©2018 Ferida Wolff for SeniorWomen.com 

Editor’s Note: We found a website that cites geese as literary symbols: “Wild migrating geese are mentioned casually twice by Homer, and once he likens a warrior among enemies to a vulture among geese (Iliad 17.460). Domestic barnyard geese, however, play a significant symbolic part in the Odyssey. While visiting Menelaus and Helen, Telemachus sees a mountain eagle carrying a white goose from a yard; Helen interprets the omen to mean that Odysseus will return home and take revenge on the suitors (15.160–78). The same meanings are elaborated in Penelope’s dream, in which twenty tame geese are killed by a mountain eagle, who then speaks, telling her he is her husband and the geese her suitors (19.535–53). The suitors have been fattening themselves idly in Odysseus’ house; they will be no match for the eagle.”

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