It Is Spring Again

“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”

This is how I feel whenever I go out to my garden and see another new flower on my Hellebore plant or another new shoot sprouting on my peonies. Even though everyone passing by the front of my house can see this, I still feel like it’s my secret garden because of how it makes me feel -- something like over-the-moon hope bursting into gleeful song. As a native Southern Californian who moved to this beautiful high desert country three years ago, I’ve never before experienced the wonder of spring. Yes, I saw the change of seasons last year and the year before, but not as dramatically as this year. This winter was a dry one with little snow or rain. But around the first official day of spring this March, we started to receive a rather generous portion of snow and rain.

Because of these weather patterns, I was doubtful that the peonies I’d planted last year would survive the dry winter, or that the Hellebore plant which somehow seemed to bloom throughout the winter would continue to thrive with the unexpected snow. And yet every day I witness the miracle of spring with another new flower or two on the Hellebore, peony plants sprouting up taller and taller, and day lilies starting to show their glorious selves.

This feeling of hope that is stronger than hope upon seeing spring come forth is because on an emotional and spiritual level, it has felt as though I too had a rather dry dreary winter. In between expanding my spiritual practice, I’ve had moments of doubt that my personal spring would bloom. There’s a quote by author Marty Rubin, “Deep roots never doubt spring will come.” And I did experience that the deeper I went into my spiritual practice, there were fewer moments of doubt. This is what I now understand about seasons, whether it be in nature or in my psyche: we all need a period of rest, of slowing down, going deeper within so that we can rejuvenate.

Mirriam-Webster dictionary’s definition of “rejuvenate” is “to make young or youthful again.” It is with child-like wonder and awe that I watch my garden grow, and it is this child in me that is the most genuine thing about me. As an individualized expression of God, I am a perfect child of God. I am made by God out of itself into itself with all of its qualities, and so I have all the potential within me to live as a vibrant radiant loving expression and re-presentation of God. Even when rejuvenating during a winter season this little/big light of mine still shines bright, for it is the light of illumination of knowing who I am no matter what. This is an innate knowing that appearances of conditions and situations are not the Absolute Truth of myself or all that is. For the Truth is that no matter how it may look – whether that be plants that appear to be beaten dead by winter, or my psyche that appears to be tired and beaten down by lower energy thoughts – the Goodness of God, a Goodness that knows no opposite, is always operating through each and every aspect and area of all Life now.