Spring is renewal. But the renewal is never a reemergence of exactly what was in past seasons. It may resemble how things were before the fall and winter, but there are always flowers, branches, weeds (if we’re woke, can we call them weeds?), the tastes of fruit, the times when plants arrive, etc., that are not the same as the last time. Spring is discovery, and we savor it.
In fact, nothing ever stays the same or repeats in exactly the same way. Our minds link things together to create an illusion of continuity, and that usually helps us feel safe—we feel we know how things are, how they’ve been, how they’re likely to be, or at least how we hope they’ll be and what we need to do to get them there, etc. But we know that the stories our minds tell us don’t always turn out to be true. From time to time, things happen that we didn’t expect and that we couldn’t control.
I spent many years of my life feeling powerless to change things about myself and my life that I didn’t like. I felt that my nature coupled with my childhood experiences to a large extent predetermined what was possible for me, at least until I did enough therapy to free myself from some of my “stuff.” It turns out there’s some truth to that, but it’s also possible to live like the Earth—each moment a spring, influenced by the past, but not bound by the past, a spring in which I can do anything, be anything. And unlike a daffodil, which in the spring can only grow into a daffodil, albeit at least slightly different from last year’s daffodil, as a human being, I can change my story in any way that suits me—I can say or do or be completely new things, things I have never said, done, or been in the past. The only limitations (aside from physical ones, like I can’t fly, or be 6” taller, or 20 years younger) are imposed by my mind. Therapy can help minimize those limitations, and in a different way, so can meditation, yoga, and other similar practices.
Freeing myself from the boundaries constructed by my mind has shifted the focus of my life from trying to achieve the best out of a limited range of options to discovery and infinite possibilities, just like the spring. Aligning myself with nature is supremely rewarding.