SECRECY OF SPRING

As I gaze outside my window, there is a luminescent full moon. She is known by the Algonquin tribes indigenous to this region as the “Sap Moon” – giving expression to the sweet sap rising in the maple and birch trees here where I live in the Northeast  – a portent of bird song, warm days, new beginnings.

After the deep hibernation of the winter and the solitude of the cave that I have resided in, I sense something stirring in me.  A restlessness evoked by the changing season, a rising need to step outside, bask in the quiet sun, stretch my limbs and greet this new world.  

I am aware of the tenderness of this time, for there is a certain shyness about stepping into the buoyant light of spring.  A shyness that is neither a weakness of spirit nor a lack of courage, but one that honors the quiet secrecy of emergence.  Like a seed that is about to sprout into new beginnings, peeking through the fertile soil of growth, there is hesitancy.  Is it safe out there?   The snowdrops that shyly cluster under the shade of an old birch tree, like fragile milk white drops seem to say, “yes, it’s safe”.

Spring is in the air. Birds are chirping sweetly, the river nearby is rushing joyfully. Earth is awakening. It has been a year since the pandemic arrived at our shores. We have all been stripped down to the essential, having to meet ourselves in a new, unfamiliar way.  It is as if we have had to surrender ourselves to the unknown so we can be held by the unknown.   I look around me. These trees too are stripped down to their raw, essential nature.  The withered oak, the stately elm, the bleached birch, all patiently await the bursts of leaf, bulb and blossom.  

This time of emergence and quiet transformation unfolds in an unhurried way.  It speaks on patience and trust.  Patience to know that the visionary seeds I have been sowing in my cave these past months, will blossom at the right time, no matter how hard I push and try to hurry the process.  And Trust that I can ease into and surrender myself to the natural cycles of my life - no matter how challenging they may feel - just as I trust that the seasons will always turn, the tides will always ebb and flow, the moon will always rise. 

 I am asked to flow with the invisible currents of my life, this sweet life force that rises from the roots of my being. 

Sap Moon has come to remind of this.

Ask yourself:

What sweet sap is quietly emerging in you?

Where are you feeling shy in this emergent process?

Where are you pushing for something to happen?

What can patience and trust teach you?

Painting: Eyes of Spring (acrylic on canvas)