With recent encouragement I changed my focus and gazed skyward.

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Rewarded immediately, the porous and slightly concave underside of Otzi, the Ice Man’s Tinderconk fungi, revealed a pattern repeated over and over again.

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In another place where the forest is intended as a demonstration project, the dancers of the woods let their boughs reach down as if they were ladies dressed in gowns rather than Norway Spruce standing in a foreign community.

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The upward gaze, however, was soon drawn down to the cone with scales numerous, thin and irregularly toothed, attracted my eye and that of a squirrel who left a large midden at the tree’s base.

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And then that gaze focused outward where Common Mergansers whispered amongst themselves in a language only they understood.

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In their midst, a Common Goldeneye swam and once again I wondered about that descriptive term “common.” Exactly what is common about that golden eye and all the other features of this duck?

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Moments later I gazed skyward again from under a princess pine clubmoss that ends each leaflike structure with a Y as in “Why”? Certainly. Perhaps because.

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Distracted once again–I spotted a spring stonefly with its rolled wings providing a stain-glassed venation.

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The next upward gaze turned a tree stump into a nurse nourishing an entire deciduous forest as if it could.

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Downward, I focused on a black-capped chickadee puffed up on a cold spring morning . . .

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and a Mourning Cloak butterfly who had overwintered as an adult under the bark of a nearby tree.

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So as a friend reminds me, I’ve entered a new season, one where I squat over vernal pools and beside streams and search for life within for hours on end.

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For now, the ice is only just melting and life within the pool taking time to emerge, such as this predacious diving beetle larva.

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At last I stand up straight and turn for a reason I don’t recall. But . . . there it is. A bird I’d seen swoop over the pool and stand at its edge as I approached. Of course, then it took off, not giving me an opportunity to identify it . . .

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Until the barred owl did just that. Flew back in and posed above. And I realized that as I looked up at it, it looked around . . .

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and then down at me. My gaze might be upward, but the owl also searched outward and downward.

As it should. This well-focused visionary knows that one must look in every direction for there’s always something to wonder about. Especially as we celebrate Easter 2021.

And my guy and I give thanks for receiving our second Pfizer shot this weekend. In the midst of joining the owl’s vision, we’re all looking upward.