Spring forward, backward into natural now
A valley oak rises above a carpet of purple owl’s clover and miniature lupine in Hardy Canyon, Round Valley Regional Preserve.
We’re told we live in a fast-paced world. Don’t tell that to the motorist mired on Highway 4 through Bay Point during so-called rush hour. The pace of the world depends on our point of view. That my computer processor hums along at 3.1 billion cycles per second is helpful, I suppose. That my fellow shoppers in the supermarket seem to be simulating underwater T’ai Chi? Not so helpful.
Whatever our point of view, one thing is certain: the pace of the world is not what it seems. It’s tempting to believe I’m a stationary object at my desk right now, but nothing in our cosmos is stationary; all is in orbit. At this Bay Area latitude I’m orbiting Earth’s axis at more than 700 feet per second. As a rider on the planet I’m clocking in at 19 miles per second in orbit around our Sun. And our Sun is dragging me along its orbit of the nucleus of our Milky Way galaxy at a blazing 150 miles per second.
Mercifully, the planets, stars and galaxies are too distant for us to grasp in all its dizzying detail the dance of the cosmos. We’re like airline passengers staring down from our window seat: we thunder through the stratosphere at 500 knots but the terrain 40,000 feet below barely moves.
Since New Year’s Day, planet Earth has completed a quarter of its 584-million-mile voyage around our Sun, etching a helix on the marbled cosmos at 67,000 miles per hour. Astronomical spring arrived this week on March 20 at 1:01 a.m. – when we rushed past a mark along that arc where our daylight and darkness measure 12 hours each: the vernal equinox.
Unlike the human invention we call midnight on New Year’s Eve, on which nothing remarkable occurs on a planetary or celestial scale, our equinoxes and solstices provide naturally occurring markers for the passage of time. Earth’s 23½-degree axial tilt conspires with our orbit of the Sun to give us a longest-daylight day of the year (summer solstice), longest-darkness day of the year (winter solstice) and two days of the year featuring equal daylight and darkness (vernal and autumnal equinoxes).
But these naturally occurring markers provide far more than positions on a planetary clock. They tap us city and suburb dwellers on the shoulder, point out the window and say, “Look!” They invite us to celebrate a primal dimension of human existence: the seasons of planet Earth.
If astronomical spring showed up on our doorstep March 20, aesthetic spring breezed through the door and settled into a comfy chair weeks ago. December 2024 rains lit the fuse of February 2025’s first salvo of wildflower splendor. Like the sequence of East Contra Costa’s produce season – strawberries to apricots to cherries to corn to tomatoes – our wildflower season opens with the traditional fusillade of yellow buttercup, magenta redmaids, orange poppies and baby blue eyes.
Chinese houses adorn Middle Trail, Mt. Diablo State Park.
Those are spring’s shots across the bow. Next, for those with a penchant for purple, comes a barrage of Ithuriel’s spear in Round Valley’s Hardy Canyon. Soon to burst throughout Los Vaqueros’ Mariposa Canyon are violet shooting stars. Oil Canyon at Black Diamond Mines is ground zero for the scarlet spikes of paintbrush. And let’s not overlook the enticement of white: by May, Morgan Territory explodes in butterfly mariposa. If you feel life rushing past too fast, kneel down and get petal level with the leisurely unfurling of spring.
On the other hand, if you’re fed up with waiting – waiting for the traffic grid to come unlocked; waiting to speak with a living, breathing service rep over the phone – if you’ve got pent-up energy to burn, lace up those walking shoes or hop onto that bike and burn energy on the wide-open trail, where not a single no-passing zone or carpool-only lane exists. Strike out from Mt. Diablo’s Donner Canyon and finish on the craggy majesty of North Peak and you’ve pulled off an effective escape from the trap of time.
Ironically, in the process of speeding up the steepness of Diablo’s Meridian Ridge, I guarantee you’ll slow down.
Of the many mantras our time-tyrannized civilization pays lip service, “live in the present” is possibly the easiest said than done. “You don’t run down the present, pursue it with baited hooks and nets,” wrote Annie Dillard. “You wait for it, empty-handed, and you are filled. You’ll have fish left over.” Whether the pace of your world is sluggish or supersonic; whether you’re being constantly urged to rush forward or ease back, try this antidote: take it outside. Go to a place where events are measured not by clocks and calendars but by the plummet of a prairie falcon or the sprawl of an arroyo willow.
Take the trail at your own pace. Slow down, speed up – the trail has no preference. Let the tyranny of time fall off you like a garment. Exist in the naked now, the now of green grass, violet wildflowers and the silver music of creeks. It’s spring: time to spring forward from cares about the past and backward from cares about the future. Time to leave our wristwatches at home.