Spring is on its way. Can you feel it? Outside your door it may still look and feel like winter, but the days are getting longer and soon there will be buds on the trees and tiny blooms will poke their heads through the snow.
Our body knows that spring is coming. Something begins to stir deep within – if only we take the time to listen. Despite our best efforts to confuse and misdirect our body with artificial light from our devices, interrupted sleep patterns, a diet that often has no relationship to the climate we live in, we are still guided by the changing seasons at our deepest levels. We simply need to attune to our body and it will tell us what it needs to remain healthy and resilient.
Whereas winter is a time to invite introspection and quiet into our life, in spring we are like those tiny blooms, slowly poking our heads out from the snow. As we emerge from our long winter’s sleep, we enter a season of awakening and renewal. Spring is a time of planting seeds and making plans, releasing the old that no longer serves us to make way for the new – new ideas, new habits, new steps on our path.
As we eagerly await spring’s arrival, let’s consider what changes this season might bring for us. What are we ready to let go? What no longer brings us joy? What have we outgrown? When we release what we no longer need, we create space for new joys, new adventures, new ideas, new paths forward.
In anticipation of spring and all its possibilities, I leave you with the words of John O’Donohue.
For a New Beginning - by John O’Donohue
In out of the way places of the heart
Where your thoughts never think to wander
This beginning has been quietly forming
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire
Feeling the emptiness grow inside you
Noticing how you willed yourself on
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the grey promises that sameness whispered
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
You eyes young again with energy and dream
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.