The Quickening | Folk Almanac
Welcome to Folk Almanac, a monthly guide to Earth & Season—a meeting place where Earth’s rhythms and the moon’s cycles guide us toward cosmic pathways. Here, you’ll find seasonal noticing, and nature observations for a changing world, rooted in plant wisdom, ancestral traditions, folk practices, and spiritual ecology. This is a sacred space to honor life’s eternal patterns, living, being, and dying, with intention and care.
Each edition is an invitation to slow down, resist the relentless pace of capitalism, and rediscover a sense of reciprocity with the land, the seasons, and the more-than-human world. Here we celebrate the quiet beauty of small, intentional acts that sustain both our souls and the future we dream of creating.
The Opening Waters
NATURE OBSERVATIONS IN A CHANGING WORLD
One day last week after school, my almost nine year old asked if I could take him on a hike. I had a long day, but he mentioned wanting to visit the pines. I held a similar longing earlier in the day, and saw this as a sign to step outside of our well worn paths. The air is still holding winter’s bite but softened by the promise of early thaw. Along the river we stood in the silt and muck, watching as vast sheets of ice drifted sluggishly, colliding with deep, echoing cracks before continuing their slow procession downstream. The land was hushed, still caught between seasons.
quickening | verb: 1. make or become faster or quicker.
At 4:35 p.m. on February 27th, standing in the open prairie and inspecting a beaver chew, we heard the call. He recognized it instantly, the unmistakable, rolling cries of Sandhill Cranes. Echoing across the nearly empty reserve, reverberating in the crisp air as we stood still, observing. A breeding pair, returning home weeks ahead of their usual mid-March arrival, circled before descending into the marsh just south of us, vanishing into the reeds. This phenological shift in their migration may suggest an earlier arrival due to warmer temperatures. A sigil of changing patterns.
On the drive home, we spotted four Tundra Swans huddled in a shallow drainage puddle in an agricultural field, a brief and unexpected resting place. The larger lakes and ponds remained locked in an exchange of thaw and freeze with our erratic weather patterns, but on this day, they were ice. Yet this puddle had formed from an overnight rain-that-should-have-been-snow, a sign of the season’s unsteady transition. As we neared home, the first rabbit of the season was spotted bolting across the gravel drive. There is grief in these changes, in erratic patterns, a wave of loss and confusion washes over us both.
The Spring Equinox, March 20th, is a portal to spring, the balance between light and dark. A time for planting seeds, both literally in the garden and metaphorically in your life. Honor the balance between intuition and action as thresh seeds from gardens past and plant seeds of possibility. Every seed you sow carries the potential for transformation, not only for yourself, but for the land and your community.
Stay tuned for a special post with a Spring Equinox Ritual closer to March 20th.
Sandhill Cranes make their descent, returning.
ONCE UPON A MARCH
March has always begged me to have trust in the process…
In California, in 2013, just days after the equinox, AJ and I were married beneath a Magnolia tree that had already shed its blooms. Perfumed Wisteria cascaded around us, and our dear friend, Aaron, played the guitar as my father walked me down the pathway. Bumblebees in euphoria, buried themselves in the golden blossoms of Forsythia blossoms while we celebrated our love in the company of our closest family and friends. The swell of Spring and love danced in the air.
A few short months later, we packed up our lives and left California, leaving everything I knew, the familiar landscapes and warmth of home for a new chapter in the Midwest. Every anniversary since, March 24th, has looked entirely different. To be honest, I had no real idea what I was stepping into…
quickening | verb: 2. reach a stage in pregnancy when movements of the fetus can be felt.
Our first anniversary, I cried: partly because of the hormones growing our daughter inside me, partly because I was experiencing my first real winter, a polar vortex bringing snow on the day that looked wholly different than the day we wed.
Since that day, March has felt pregnant with both endings and beginnings, a threshold between seasons and selves.
On a March 4th, under the cover of darkness in warm waters, I birthed our son into the world at our home in Milwaukee.
On a March 4th, we moved into the house we poured all our love, time, and resources into, as we dreamt, designed, and general contracted the build.
On a March 14th, my book Our Kindred Home was released into the world.
Oftentimes, it feels like March holds more love, transition, and meaning than I could possibly process in a lifetime. And this year, for reasons I can’t quite name, is no different. I enter March tentatively, never quite ready for the transformation waiting on the other side. But through darkness, courage, and sheer determination not to give up, I find my way through.
This edition of Folk Almanac contains astrological happenings, the folk practice of tapping maple trees, and herbal recommendations. If you’ve ever lingered over my words, saved a photo, or felt a spark of inspiration from my work; first of all, thank you! Second, wanna help keep it going? My substack is where I share more of the good stuff: essays, stories, and slow, thoughtful dispatches on home, nature, and more. Paid subscriptions make this work possible, and honestly, they mean the world to me. So, if you’ve been enjoying what I do, consider joining as a supporter. It’s like buying me a coffee... but with way more words in return.