Spring seems truly a magical time of year, especially this year, for we have been waiting through a long and cold winter. Just last week we were still waiting, still bundling up to go outside, wishing for sun and warmth. And suddenly there it was, Spring bursting out everywhere. In a way, it seemed a bit surreal. Could this really be it, or was it another false start?
Maybe the hesitancy to believe was the reason why so many of us walked and drove through this exceptionally abundant explosion of growth without taking proper notice. I remember passing my magnolia, its blooms the fullest I'd ever seen, and thinking that I should stop and properly pay homage to this miracle of beauty. Yet my schedule pushed me on to other things, and now it is too late. Already the blossoms have fallen with the rain.
In the very early spring, there is an almost ethereal green in the new growth of trees, surrounding a high landscape with iridescence. I'm sure you have experienced it, walking out into this tender time of year when all around seems held in a kind of magical spell. Though the glowing green is what we notice, there is more to this phenomenon than color, I think. A teeming energy surrounds and supports this new growth, making the outside world gently glow. And we feel this field of energy. It touches our own energy fields and catalyzes a rebirth of sorts in us too. We are caught up in the web of life and held gently in that mass of interconnections.
It doesn't last long, this burgeoning of glowing green, only a very few days. And it is over now. The maple tree above has already grown larger, tougher leaves, leaves that can withstand the hard rain and wind to come. And the giant grandfather cottonwood below, having survived over a hundred years of storms and lightning strikes, has already shed its early buds, the ones from which we make Balm of Gilead, and is reaching once more into the sky with resilient new growth.
I celebrate this time of year, the incredible phenomenon of earth waking from winter's sleep and bursting out with new life. And in spite of the busy schedule that tends to dominate all our lives in this part of the world, my hopeful intent is to spend time each day in a quiet attentiveness to this gift of nature.
