Let Me Linger with the Spring

Winter lasts too long. Even if spring begins with Imbolc, which it does in my view, winter lasts long. It is not the cold – it never has been. It is the lack of light. I need the Sun.

When Imbolc arrives, the days are almost imperceptibly longer, just a minute or so a day, but I can feel it. Yes, yes, spring always follows winter and always will. But late mornings and early evenings of darkness leave a paucity of light for the rest of us.

Equinox

And then, like magic, annual magic, the Vernal Equinox appears. The days in the northern hemisphere are lengthened by stealing the Sun from the southern hemisphere, but I ignore the theft. I hope my friends down under understand.

Heraclitus said, “The sun is new each day,” and it is. Truly this is our present miracle. The Sun that returns, day after day, season after season, year after year. It is not only the chance to live life again, but to do that which is right, to do what is needed, to have another chance.

The plants, children of the springtime, know this as well. Last year is forgotten. In fact, last year may have never existed. The sun warms the earth, and the magic of life begins again. Last year’s plant may be totally different this year. The plant is new each day.

And my life?

And my life? Much less glory than the beauty of a plant, from simple seed and recollection to that bit of greenery that expands up through the Earth, blessed by the Earth Mother, reaching deep to grow another day. I arise, listen to the sounds that mean the most to me and continue. I am not sure if I am following the masterplan, but I put one linear foot in front of the other and pick up from where I was the day before.

I pray, along this springtime path, that I too am growing, in expected and unexpected ways. Do I follow the path that opens in front of me, or do I choose another, one off the main path, which may lead to wisdom, to discovery, or to just another pathway? That I be wise enough to not wander lost. That I be flexible enough to follow the wind when it pushes me in another direction.

The springtime beckons me, each sunrise a bit earlier than before. Each night the sunset delays a little longer. If my days are measured by my time in the Sun, how rich those days might be. There is so much to see beneath the sky.

March

As late March rolls into early April, I am ecstatic at the lengthening light. I just know that the days will lengthen forever and that the memory of winter is far behind. As I rise each day to an earlier sun, I am blessed in infinite ways.

April passes by and I am hypnotized, the days get longer, and they always will. Dusk remains slightly out of reach and the sunset comes as a surprise after a that stays like a welcome guest, always smiling, always accommodating.

May announces itself like the glory of days, with cool dawns interspersed with warm mornings and hot afternoon. Rainy days and chilly days emerge unexpectedly and may interrupt the progress of days, but the jumble keeps me off balance as the days grow longer and longer.

Suddenly, June

Suddenly and inevitably, someone will mention June, and it dawns upon me like a suppressed memory that sometime during the month of Juno, the Sun will tire of the endless early mornings and later afternoons and start to slow down.

I hold on to those final days of Spring and say my prayers to the Sun: may you shine forever, may your radiant days grow longer, may spring never end. To the first prayer, the sun glows a little bit brighter. To the second prayer, the Sun nods, withholding the certainty of the Solstice to come. To the third, the Sun reminds me that it never ends, it just coming back, but with a lapse, a separation.

Without warning, one day, the Sun will stop in the sky, gather its thoughts, turn around and head the other way. It will take a while for the shortening of days to be unmistakably noticeable, for the Spring to become the memory of Spring. And which I continue forward, it is in anticipation of that spring that never ends but just returns a little bit later.

Let me hold onto this moment

Let me hold onto this moment, these last days of spring. The days are like gold coins of the sun. They retain their value, but they do not shine quite as brightly. They become the fuel of remembrance. I remember the spring, and the days that grow both earlier and longer.

I am rich in these last few days of spring. If I turn them just right, they reflect the sun in such a way that the days continue to grow longer. But only while the sun shines. May they grow as daisies in the garden of my days.