Musings on a Snowy Spring Equinox

I left off writing here last December (just short of the winter solstice) with a note saying I’d return in a month with a new blog format. Obviously, I took my own poem to heart: to become bear-like / in these winter months / to slow down to a soft snore / to lumber willingly / into my cave—and have only now, three months later and after much Internet and soul searching, come to see that this blog only wanted a spring cleaning (less pages & some organization), and thus, a lightness to it.

Thank you to those who wrote wondering about the long silence. I missed showing up here every two weeks—those moments of observation and the subsequent wild surge of connection that happens in the fraction of a second, the desire to record it through the written word. Though the missing hasn’t overshadowed the necessity and appreciation of hunkering down these past three months. The blog (and I) just needed a rest, a recalibration, and as Julia Cameron writes in her book The Artist’s Way, the well of creativity needed to fill up again. Having let go of superfluous projects and pale imaginings over the winter, what is ready, able and willing to emerge now has ample room to do so.

It’s snowing outside at this moment in the northern California town of Nevada City (at home it’s 90 degrees F.). Welcomed as guests in our friends’ cozy home, we are lazing about on this blustery, sometimes rainy, sometimes snowy Sunday because the mountain passes out of town are closed. Zero visibility. Avalanche danger. So much for doing. It’s useless to fret about plans that the weather has no intention of honoring.

The daffodils, camillias, and budding fruit trees take the snow in stride—bending, not breaking, drawing on a deep resiliency and an unalterable desire to bloom—there is no turning back once this bursting forth has begun, whatever the weather.

So much is going on in the world at this time. Discernment is paramount. What is necessary for our well-being, and the well-being of those around us? What idea, project, intention, goal or transformation has been gestating during the winter months, and is now eager to be birthed and realized? Which ones need more time to develop? Can you feel inspiration and excitement rising like sap in your veins? How deep is your resiliency, your own desire to bloom?

Wherever you are, and whatever you’re creating during this threshold time called spring, may you embrace it wholeheartedly. May you burst forth with a vibrancy that shocks and delights.

Photo credit: Snow flowers by C Morley (found on the blog Designers Who Blog)