It's official, spring arrives at 12:14 am tonight. New beginnings and fresh starts- in the garden and ourselves. This has always been a time for reflection- where am I going, what do I want, how am I going to get there? I have a tendency to get wrapped up in endless minutiae and forget to pause, reduce the noise in my head and look around. Rainer Maria Rilke, in Letters to a Young Poet, said, "Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
Spring starts slowly (except this year). The garden, brown and littered with debris from the winter, starts to awaken and shake off her lethargy. As the days grow longer, she starts to gather steam and finally explodes in the chaotic riot of color and texture of August. But it all starts with a little green shoot in the spring. I want 2012 to be the year I decide to live mindfully, fully engaged in the present moment. I hope to hold the image of tender green leaves emerging from darkness into light and remember to gradually live my way into the answers.
