The ice cream truck is singing. There is light rain. The flower bulbs are pushing through the fertile soil. Balmy evenings. The dome-like umbrella-shaped Japanese Maple in lacy leafy shades of crimson bloomed practically overnight in the front yard. There is an explosion of rich and colorful flower tapestries on hillsides. The birds are tweeting and chirping. The air is scented with garden perfume.
The evidence of springs arrival is all around.
Officially, Passover is Chag Haaviv, the holiday of Springtime. We eat celery, potatoes or boiled eggs to represent the onset of Spring.
But unlike in Israel, here in America you dont always feel the harmony between the date of the holiday and the living season outside.
Sometimes the evidence of Springs arrival takes a couple of weeks to catch up with the official date.
O, I think we have caught up by now. Spring -fever splendor and glory are everywhere. Once Spring arrives, it arrives rather quickly.
April and May, something really does shift in the air.
I do feel a spring (pardon the pun) in my step.
Taking some Spring walks and seeing random people out in their yards, digging into the soil, planting new color and beauty into the world lime green shrubs, high bushes of delicate white Queen Anne lace and weeping willowlike leaves, hues of pinks, oranges, yellows and blues the world is waking up, lighting up, from a long winter nap.
And you know what?
Its nice, really really nice.
Spring in its essence is an affirmation of renewal. Just like the physical world out there, our bodies or spirits can and do regenerate.
Spring is a season of great promise of whats to come. Of the possibility and reality of the beauty of new life. Of how things can regenerate. From the ruins of deadness and decay can come life.
To every stage of life there is a season. There is the summer of youth, the dusk and twilight of autumn, of the sun setting on old age. There is the death of winter.
But as long as there is life, there is Spring, a possibility of change, blossoming and regeneration.
Spring is another chance. In whatever form even for the tiniest thing, like planting a seedling, nurturing its growth a chance to plant a garden, to start over again.
Be the chance physical, spiritual or emotional.
There is something in the physical act of planting, even just a flower pot, that translates to strengthening that feeling of growth within.
Your knees are a little sore. Your hands get grimy and dirty. You dont really see the bloom yet. And yet, it is such a lovely and wondrous experience. You feel satisfied in a very basic way.
And then wait.
As you wait this season, I hope the seedlings you planted will become a million flowers that will blossom into rich colorful tapestries of Spring.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
