Nature's Wisdom Spring, 2007 Vol. 6 Issue 1
by Sarah Anne Edwards
"It’s the dream that keeps us alive!” Bo Bice, Blades of Glory.Lessons of Spring: Proceed!
Our Dreams Will Survive.
Their Seeds Are Born of Winter Snow
One day the forest was covered in snow; then came a warming spell. Suddenly everything here is budding from. Green sprouting from grey and brown. The Lilacs, the Forsythia, the Jonquils, the apple tree. They’re all budding.The golden light is streaming down the meadow again each day around five o’clock. Some call it the “artist’s light.” It’s a magical, soft, glow that seeps in and warms the Winter soul.
The crickets that sing through the summer nights beneath our bedroom windows are back, too and, of course, the bats who hang out on our front porch once Winter’s over, have returned.
The Jays are building a new nest on the eave outside our bedroom window. For several years they came every Spring, but the past few years they haven’t been here. This pair of parents-to-be are young ones. They’re smaller, sleeker, and bluer than the pair who used to be here. I can’t help but wonder if they were born here and have come home to roost.
Taking a cue from the obvious confidence I see around us that Spring is preparing to make a full-blown, resplendent appearance, we’ve taken the shovels off the porch and stored them away. We’ve thrown open the windows, washed the windowsills and are walking in sunhats and sandals to the post office to pick up the mail, enlivened by the refreshingly light and inviting air.As the buds push outward and expand day by day and the nest takes on a gradually less haphazard form, fittingly our own new life here is budding too. Winter has been a long waiting time. For months we have had no sense of our future, my husband and I, other than that it would not look like the past. But all this long Wintertime, unknown to us, the seeds of a new future must have been germinating in our hearts and minds because with the melting of snows and the warming of the meadow winds, a dream is taking from. We can see its infant silhouette as I speak of possibilities. We can feel
the excitement of new plans sprouting and a new life budding..As I watch the Jays working diligently on their nest each day, I can see absolutely no hesitation in their resolve. No signs of doubt in their efforts, only an earnestness of intent for the nest that is to be. But such trust in the effervescence of early Spring is harder for us humans. Despite our delight and eagerness to greet the new season, we know this is only March. Heavy snows of Winter could return at any time. The Lilacs, Jonquils, Forsythia and apple blossoms may all be nipped again this year, as they often are. We might wish we’d left the shovels back out on the porch so we wouldn’t have to haul them up again. And our exciting new plans for the future, well … they may not flower either. They’re so young and untested, so vulnerable to forces not in our control.
Nagging worries tend to nip at the edges of our dreams. Is it too early? Is it the right time to start a new journey? What if the snows return? Has life in our forest been tricked by Global Warming? Have we been tricked by our desires into a foolish scheme? Will economic forces we cannot yet see waylay our plans? Should we dampen our embrace of Spring? Return the shovels to the porch? Hold off on our new dreams? Just in case.
Well, nothing else around us is waiting. Nothing else is holding back. Living here, watching how other species live and die peacefully in the forest, I’ve grown weary of second-guessing life. So, no, we will proceed with newborn dreams.
Like the Jays, the crickets and the bats, will rely on the wordless, nameless wisdom of our inner senses. Yes, there is a risk of getting nipped, but life will go on. The bats and the crickets will leave if the snow returns, but they’ll be back again. The nest will wait. The bushes and bulbs will blossom again, if not this year then next. And we, well, whatever the fate of our nascent ventures there will be new paths ahead, perhaps similar, perhaps not, to what we have in mind today.
Our dreams will not die; only change form with the weather of time and circumstance.
Here's to Life!
Spring Blessings,
Sarah
