The Charms of Spring

Last weekend at the farmer's market I bought a bouquet of burnt orange ranunculus.  I had been eyeing them for the last couple of weeks and decided this was the week they would come home with me.  We were nearing the end of a few unseasonably hot days and I had my doubts that these beauties would last mid-week.  And indeed on Wednesday they did start their natural decline, opening and shedding petals, while a few flowers remained in their Rembrandtesque charm.  I think this is one reason I love these flowers, they look like a painting from another time or that they were cut from a 17th century garden. I noticed the older they got, the more the flowers opened into the releasing of their petals. The vibrant color and lushness of their youth is unmatched and yet I remain drawn to them in their softer colors and smaller blooms.  Even in their "declining" state, they remain a source of delight in my meditation space.  They remind me of the gifts of every season, of every age.  I am one of those odd ones who has always looked forward to middle age and beyond.  Maybe I sensed I would be a late bloomer.  I am excitedly nearing this time in my life, but I also see that there are some gifts of youth that would serve me well to remember and reconnect with.  When I was younger I was more prone to doing something just for the joy of doing it, not worrying what others would think, how much it would cost in money, time or energy or if it would "do something for me."  I have allowed time to wilt this part of me away.  As children we don't think, "I can't wait to be an adult so i can loose my sense of delight and be afraid of being myself."  But, unfortunately, I think this happens to many of us.  And if you are like me, it probably happened subtly over many years.  But the good news is this part of us is still within us.  And spring is a wonderful time to reconnect with what has lied dormant.  The earth and the energies of spring show us the way every year.  Why not see where it will take you?

Seeping

The new sun dries the pools of winter

In this perennial act of mercy, 

The last remnants of her stay are dissolved.

I look closely to find

She is quietly seeping into her new gown.

She mixes mud, dust, light on my face

The seasons exchange secrets across this pulled canvas.

Pale arid canyons softly fill with golden streams.

In the cave

A long asleep bear grumbles awake

A shake of the leg

A twitch of the eyelash

He braces himself as best he can, but the months underground

Have taken something he can’t live without

This waking death every year

For something he can’t live without…

The unveiling of her new gown.

Today is as good as any to begin

I recently read that when we see qualities in another that we admire and resonate with, it means that we have the seeds of these same qualities within us.  And this morning I realized I have been searching for beauty, more specifically, flowers.  They inspire me and fill me with pleasure and a delicate joy. They are all around me here in Southern California.  On my run today, I smelled a white rose that smelled just like a rose.  And most days when I am walking around minding my own business a gentle breeze delivers the scent of the woody eucalyptus or the almost sweet jasmine.

A few years ago I traveled to Mexico hoping to find some answers about my past and find some direction for my future.  Of course, I realize this is a lot to ask of a country, but I was desperate.  I spent time in the highlands of Oaxaca, hoping to meet a shaman who could help me heal my past so I could move on with my life, in the direction of my own choosing.  In the market, filling the narrow mountain street, was a woman selling mazatec pottery. She called me over and invited me to stay with her and her family.  She was genuine, and familiar with gringos coming into town looking for ceremonies, so I took her up on her offer and went back to the hotel and collecting my things.  She provided me with my own room on the bottom floor of her mountain side home, it was cold and damp.  She fed me egg omelets, tortillas and coffee.  When the day came for the ceremony I was excited and hopeful that what I felt I had lost would be returned to me, that I would feel whole again.  Of course, healing is rarely this instantaneous, but a girl can dream.  The ceremony was a mix of Catholic and Indigenous prayers and rituals, as well as Ines' generosity and compassionate heart.  She could tell my heart and soul were in a rough state of affairs, but her faith was resolute.  During the ceremony I did not feel any major shifts, but I did feel I was in the presence of prayer and trusted Ines' work.  That night I went to sleep, only to wake up in a dream-like meditative state speaking in a language I had never heard and didn't literally understand, but somehow knew it was working magic on me.  I saw my soul traveling into the Sierra Madres searching for what had been misplaced.   On my way down the mountain the next day I would understand this vision more clearly.  When I woke in the morning I remembered a dream; I was cut open like a c-section, but instead of giving birth to a baby, I gave birth to flowers.

The memory of this dream surfaces every once and awhile, like today, when I remembered for a moment that what I am seeking outside of myself, like beautiful flowers, is already within me. Spiritual teachers repeat this quite often and I honestly always thought it was kind of vague and even trite; but now I think it is just that it is really difficult to believe.  In many ways it was easier for me to travel a foreign country alone than recognize I had all the seeds of happiness within me.  My psyche needed to be in Mexico, it was a part of my particular healing that had to do with my father and a former love, but it was also a way of fleeing some of my deepest emotions.  I was simultaneously searching for my place in this world and running from it.  Being in Mexico quieted my most painful inner voice; that said I had given up on the life I was meant to live.  This voice had been teasing and taunting me for years and I needed to be in a place where it had little or no power.  Free of this voice I began to accept that my life was heading in a new direction.  I realized Mexico was not to be my home and I was ready to return to my friends and family in the States.  It's one of the paradoxes of healing; that sometimes we have to leave our home, both literally and spiritually in order to return more deeply to our essential self.  It has been 8 years since I made that journey to Mexico and today the early spring flowers are encouraging me to look within, to remember the dream, to add beauty to the world, and to trust what is unfolding within me.  As we approach the Spring equinox, what do you sense is unfolding within you?  What seeds would serve you best to cultivate and grow; and what seeds will serve you best to stop watering?