I don’t make New Year’s resolutions….as such. Why would I want to make decisions, change things, shake up my ‘norm’ on a cold, dreary day in the middle of winter? No. My new ‘resolutions’ start with spring.
Spring, like my choices, life decisions, creeps up slowly….and then, one day, BAM!….it’s here. I do not need a calendar or a news report or an ‘app’ to tell me it’s spring….I see it and I feel it. I see it in all the snowdrops and daffodils that shake their pretty heads at my feet
…..the first big dollop of colour in months. I see it in the fattening buds on the trees that I walk past on my way to the garden. I hear it from the birds, brazenly staking their claims to the bud ridden branches. I see it in my soil……I am convinced I even smell it in my soil.
But, most of all, I feel it.
It is unquantifiable….but there is something about spring that stirs me, deep inside. It actually messes with me. This is the time of year (not New Year’s) when I start to wonder about past decisions, begin to make new ones…..when I begin to feel the need to stretch my wings, inhale deeply and take off with possibilities. And soar.
I find it hard to make changes, to make big decisions but, somehow, being on the soil makes it easier. I don’t know why I experience such clarity of thought when I am in the garden…but I do. Perhaps it is the alone time. Perhaps it is the perspective gained by watching nature do its thing…… by watching and trusting in the cycle of life…. Spring is a time of massive change. But it is a positive change…it is a time of new growth, new vigour, new life. It is a time of optimism. Time in the garden rubs off on my soul and makes me more brave…..to embrace newness and change.
Happy springtime to you all. And may your spring gardens inspire clarity for your difficult decisions and for your ‘new year’s resolutions’.
What a lovely post.
I too ‘feel’ spring and have sorely missed it whilst livng in Singapore where there are no seasons, but this year I’m back in the U.K. to experience it in all it’s glory.
We are so lucky here to be able to grow such a vast array of plants and I am so excited to be able to garden again.
Happy gardening
Enjoy all your seasons once more. Welcome home.
I’ve been following your winter gardening episodes. Oh, how I long to feel the earth between my fingers and toes. However, as I look out my craft room window, it’s a “snow globe” out there. Very beautiful, but cold. Oh, to possibly answer a question you posed regarding it being too cold to snow? I has to do with the amount of humidity in the air. Too dry – no snow. Moisture = snow. I’m so looking forward to 2017’s gardening and the new plantings.
Lovely. I totally agree. Why make assessments in the cold death of the old year. Spring is the time to make changes as the world of nature is reawakening.
What a lovely essay. I do agree, spring is the right time for decision making. It is so sad how far we have been led astray by the Christian way of experiencing a year. Living according to the seasons has a far better flow and feeds the soul with the changing of air, water and soil.
It is coming into autumn here after a heatwave of a summer. Like you I feel it that sudden clder breeze, the birds arriving, plants that need pulling, slowing down and breathing a sigh of relief after the heat. I think the clarity that comes in the garden is a form of meditation. Chris in Aus.
Definitely a form of meditation.