29 March 2016

Dance like no one is watching.  Sing like no one is listening.  Love like you’ve never been hurt, and live like it’s heaven on earth.

Spring is busting out in every possible way here in Northern California’s central valley.  The oaks, the sycamore and the buckeye are unfurling shiny new foliage.  The birds begin their choral rites at the faintest hint of dawn, their songs silvery and sleek and enchanting.  The wildflowers throw out blankets of white and gold and lavender and their fond names feel good on my tongue;  Butter and Eggs, Tidy Tips, Delphinium and Dichelostemma.  The breeze is a heady potion perfumed by jasmine and wisteria and lilac.  There is so much to savor, so much zest to celebrate.

Every living thing turns potential into the tangible every moment of every day, but this time of year it is more apparent, more fulsome, a brimming over of vitality and a spilling over of eagerness.  Winter is the time for burrowing in and husbanding resources, reflecting upon and charting life courses.  Spring is about turning possibility into reality, emerging and rising anew, spending the wad.

It’s all utterly contagious.  The generative urge and the buoyancy of beauty course through me because, like each of us, I’m part of it, too.  I feel eager and playful.  I want to skip out into the garden and poke my nose into the blossoms the butterflies adore and see what miraculous events have transpired this morning.  I feel the urge to create.  A desire to take part and be part of.

Creativity is one way I experience who I am and what I might add to the world.  Curiosity opens me to what’s around me and engages me with it.

This time of year is a giant, actual-reality invitation to step right up and stick our hands and hearts into life with creativity and curiosity.  It’s a great time to tweak routines, to feel a bounce in my step, let my laugh be easy and see what comes of it.  Can I lift my heart in song like the birds?  Where can I unfurl new leaves or push myself up from the soil to lift a fresh face to the day?

While life is mysterious and at times tremendously challenging and painful, I believe that at the core of existence there is a support for ongoing life and a bedrock of connection that links us all.  I think of this as a type of love.

In this winsome season, love is in the air.  Enticing us to set out on something new, to explore something exciting, to lean into beauty, to create ecstasy.  And to share it all, broadcast it around us, whenever possible.  To all take part in and be part of spring’s great fling.