Word for the Day: Water

This struggle between King Winter and Lady Spring is inevitable yet seems to take us by surprise each year. Our skin and hearts long for sunshine, warmth, and fresh air. Our souls are hungry for birdsong, flowers, and afternoons with friends. Most supermarket conversations at this time of year include some form of, “I’m tired of this. I’m sick of being cold. Enough already.” It is easy to grow frustrated and impatient, to want to be finished with the tension of this struggle between the seasons. Yet it is this very tension, this struggle that signals the earth to wake up. This tension between warmth and cold stimulates the sap in perennial plants and deciduous trees to slowly rise allowing the vegetation to wake up over time.

And indeed, spring takes the upper hand. A green blush appears on the earth, bright yellow coltsfoot appears overnight, daffodils trumpet Lady Spring’s return, and the birds begin to fill the air with song. The peepers sound forth with their cacophonous celebration of the season.

At the same time, this change of seasons asks for patience. What does patience look like? Where do I see it in myself? Or rather when am I not patient? One day last week I decided to brave the falling mixed precipitation and go outside. As I was walking by the pond near my house, I was drawn to observe its surface where either liquid snow or thick water was falling. At the point of impact of each falling white drop, concentric circles rippled outward, but it was happening slower than I remembered. I could actually watch the circles glide over and under each other, patiently expanding until the whole surface of the water was covered with thousands of circles peacefully, patiently weaving over and under yet leaving the surface quite undisturbed.

Indeed, our patience is tried at this time of year in New England. At the same time, we are given the opportunity to expand our souls as we seek for patience and equanimity even as we long for sunshine and no more snow.

What about the children?

They want out! Out of their heavy clothes, out of the wintry elements, out of their houses! We started out with water, which seems to be everywhere in all manner of forms. Let them out into it! It is time for making mud pies, splashing in puddles,
fishing in the streams, making rivers and dams in even the tiniest trickle of flowing water. The young child seeks to be one with the natural world and what a wonderful time of year to let them experience it in all that is happening in the awakening world — smells, sounds, colors, textures, and even tastes; let them sample the first quiet violet they discover.

Oh the glory of a New England spring!