Seasonal Shifts, Spring Sprouts, and How the Sh!t Becomes the Soil

Although I live in FL now, a place many think of as ‘eternal summer’, I grew up outside of Chicago, and remember too well the slushy, muddy, grey mess that is spring in northern climes. I also more fondly recall those exquisite days of early spring that would pop in now & again, teasing everyone out of their sweaters with sunny blue skies & temps maybe in or near 70….AAHhhhhhhh!  Hope for spring, and the more bountiful summer to come!

Lilacs are a northern fav sign of spring that I sorely miss!

I myself and many people I know are going through major transitions lately, which feel not unlike the messy, sometimes bone chilling change from the death & darkness of winter slowly & intermittently shifting to an ultimately lighter, more fertile spring.  I am lucky to have had many wise teachers around me through my own transitions.

One of them, Christine Kane, is the first in my experience to remind me, all of us, of such a simple, natural truth that can make all the difference in making our way through the mud & muck of a change of seasons in our work life, or any aspect of it.  She points out that in our own gardens when we plant seeds (be it for veggies, or dreams), what comes up FIRST, is the DIRT.  Well, wow.  Now isn’t that just …. true?  So simple, and obvious, really, but profound.

She explains that “anything unlike itself will rise“, that in our more personal challenges, the muck of our doubts, our fears, our past come up to be healed, and moved out of our way, to clear the path for the spout to blossom, unencumbered by what was previously a weight, holding it down.  I will add my own notion that all that has decayed in the dark becomes the sh!t 🙂 that feeds the new.  After all, our veggie gardens know that manure is SUCH good fertilizer!

Maybe you just feel like old friends, jobs, business relationships or goals, or views of yourself or even the world are falling away, or, being yanked away from you, leaving you feeling a bit vulnerable & exposed?  Another wise woman in my support system, Maggy Whitehouse, author, comedian & spiritual teacher, encourages us to “self prune”.  Think of how much better the plant thrives when you remove the brown leaves that will no longer suck growth energy away from the healthy parts of the plant? So, too, does the soil stay much richer for the plant when we pull up the weeds competing for the nutrients, things blossom.

It’s challenging to hold out hope while the bleak blowing winds of spring remain & linger in the cold of winter.  And yet, who doesn’t also look forward to and believe in the coming of the spring and it’s return to life?

As what I see as a confirmation that this was the right topic to share here this month, (and undoubtedly for me to write about for myself at the very least), when I took a break & checked in on Facebook, I found a new, inspiring connection had posted this quote:

“There’s usually a breakdown before the breakthrough,

chaos before the win, tantrums before the triumph.  

Look ahead.  It’s all prep work!”

May the spring bring to you new growth and renewed trust in the promise of gentler seasons to come.