Now come the rains, the cleansing spring rains, softening the soil, rousing the waking seeds. Let the shoots rise. Let the buds release their leaves and flowers. Let the sun unfurl its rainbows in the fresh, blue sky.
Now come the rains, the singing rains, gliding down the tree trunks, pouring puddles on the streets, filling lakes, feeding ponds, washing winter’s sleep from the world’s eyes, and all the while thundering its life-giving song.
Now come the rains. Give thanks, and let your heart rise in gladness for the advent of Spring, for the cleansing, softening, greening rain, and for its mighty song.
“Hey!” They shouted in their loud yellow voices. I had seen them as I whizzed past, but I saw them as if I’d seen them a hundred times before and not, as was truly the case, for the very first time this year,
“Hey! You! Hey!” As soon as their call reached me, I stopped the car, backed up, pulled over and leaped out. “Hello! Hello!” I sang to them. “You are so beautiful!”
They stood there, beaming, glad someone noticed. pretending they didn’t care if anyone saw them at all. But their gladness betrayed them. They wiggled with joy and proudly posed when I asked to take their picture.
The wonder isn’t so much the way that forsythia blossoms in spring, their yellow stars tumbling like clowns by the hundreds, making something inside of you smile. It’s that this group of atoms sees that group as flowers and that smiles can happen at all.
I was out looking at the stars the other night, and once more I was filled with awe at the realization that our home is but one speck of rock circling one star amidst uncountable stars in one of an unknown number of galaxies. How small we are! And yet, how incredible our minds, to be able to grasp the immensity of it all, to compute the distances, to be capable of wonder and to marvel at its mysteries and order and beauty.
How can we be asleep to that? How can we take it all for granted? Why, when we’re gifted not only with intelligence but with the capacity to love, is our little world beset with such rancor and pain?
You know, there seems to be a trend afoot these days to pit us all against each other, to egg us into taking sides on every conceivable issue. Tensions and conflicts engulf our homes and work places, our neighborhoods and nations. And this, despite the fact that what the overwhelming majority of humans want is simply to get along with each other and to live our lives in harmony and peace.
None of us has the power, individually, to change the course of world events. But we can have an influence in our immediate corners of the world. That’s the place to start. From there, it evolves and spreads, of its own accord. It becomes the ripple that eventually turns the tide,
I heard a suggestion this week that I liked a lot. Instead of getting entrapped in the blame game, it said, focus on seeking solutions. Ask yourself what you can do to make things better and be willing to give your ideas a try.
Sometimes that can mean having to admit you were less than kind, or respectful, or honest. None of us is at our best all the time. We get tired, and crabby, and selfish. It’s part of being human to blame someone else for our lousy states of mind. But our ability to apologize is a part of being human, too.
Sometimes making things better means stretching beyond our comfort zones and trying on less-than-familiar behaviors—holding our tongues when we would normally confront, forgiving hurts, deciding to overlook other’s foibles instead of falling into irritation, looking for things to like in those whose opinions contrast with our own.
What can I do to make things better? That’s the solution-focused question. How can I create more harmony? More understanding? More beauty? More wholesomeness and health? What would be the kind thing to do? The loving thing? How can we work together to fix things?
“Be the peace you want to see in the world” the sage said. Every time you apply it, the world does indeed become a more peaceful place. One act, one person at a time.
Wishing you a week filled with beautiful solutions.
The rain glides down the still bare branches of the trees, washing them clean for springtime. The fragrance of spring is in the air now, even though on days like these, bathed in clouds, the world looks as much like November as it does late March. Until you notice the buds bursting open on the trees. Until you spot the daffodils’ leaves rising from the soil. Until you notice how this wet, cold air is brimming with birdsong. Then you know.
I see you, brave little leaves, poking up from winter’s survivors into the late March air even though the nights still promise more frost. I understand; I came early, too. You can only wait so long before you simply have to make the leap. Comfort is fine, as far as it goes, but oh, the irresistible lure of fresh adventures!
The budding trees are dancing their welcome to Springtime, bless them, as if this dance could be their last. You never know. Anything can happen, and for all its brilliance and potential, mankind has once more pushed this spinning world right to the brink.
Nevertheless, today the sky is blue and sap is rising, and robins dart in little flocks above the fields. It’s true, what the poet said about hope. It springs eternal. So let us dance and may the life within us swell in gladness.
It’s not like you flip a switch and here it is, full-blown, with lush greens and tulip blossoms. Spring is more subtle than that, refined, you might say. She glides in slowly, sometimes mild and sunny, sometimes cloaked in rain and snow. But her light proclaims what her weather may not say, and new birds were singing at her dawn. Keep faith. These are but her first hours. Spring has miracles up her sleeve.
Like a signature quickly fading, one last curve of snow lines the road. One last layer of ice floats on the lake. The winter-bleached fields wait for the plow.
The transition feels seamless, a gradual flowing of seasons, one into another. And yet, in this moment, a robin’s call marks the long winter silence with its alert: something new comes.
You can never go home, they say. What they mean is that the place you remember isn’t the same as what’s there now. Everything changes, you know. Things put on new faces or disappear. New things tower from places where there was nothing before.
So when you cruise in, it takes time to get your bearings, even though this is the place where you were born. You have to scout around a bit, act the part of a tourist until the familiar emerges from behind the new mask, until the memories float up from the fragments time let stand. They’ll be enough to anchor you.
Home is home, the place where your heart began beating, where you took your first breath. You hold what was. It shows you what is. Together you can make your tomorrows.
