One of my favourite books is The Book of Delights. Every time I come across something that makes my heart flutter, if only for a moment, I whisper “Delight!” and smile as if it was an inside joke.

I am getting good at this. This morning I stopped on the corner to listen to the choir of local birds: sparrows, cardinals, juncos, robins and a lonely white-breasted nuthatch.

I went for another walk in the evening delighting in the fact that an evening walk no longer means a walk in the dark. I delighted at the sight of the thinning ice and the joyful little brook that was still and frozen only two weeks ago.

Walking in the early spring is a little bit like living in reverse: the world around looks like late autumn, except it is full of hope.

Autumn, which I love dearly, is always tinged with regret and a feeling of inevitability. Winter is always death. Spring is the awakening of the spirit. Those are the teachings of the Medicine Wheel and they are also the teachings of my people.

My people used to celebrate the new year in March and count their age in Springs and in Summers. My people used to know the spirits that lived in the brooks. They were female spirits, the tricksters. We called them Mavkas.

Mavkas used to disguise themselves as beautiful women and seduce village boys. Sometimes they would do it for laughs, sometimes out of revenge and sometimes they would fall in love. In these cases, it was always the humans who betrayed them.

My ancestors used to believe that the universe was feminine. The trees, the rivers, the tall grass of the steps, the soil that could sprout every kind of seed, and the stars.

Today, I have heard someone saying: what if the universe was born not in a Big Bang, but in a sensuous exhale releasing the mirriads of carbon dust particles into the womb of the great unknown.