Green is the color of spring and a time of vision and visualization, the start of framing beginnings, plans, a refresh.
Last week I sat down next to the dog on her bed and the cat in his chair to do a short meditation. It was night, and there was only the outside porch light on and the sounds of rain.
This morning I restarted my 10-minute yoga/ 5-minute meditation and this stretches out time and space and grace.
My tendons need stretching and suppleness as they are gaining in years of service, physically and emotionally- yes they have an emotional side- the need to reach and connect.
I am thinking about the change of seasons from winter to spring and what elements are involved.
Cold and dark winter can bring on fear or depression. Yet darkness can also bring wisdom and clarity. The water element is what we need for new growth, to go forward with some force of energy. Spring brings the confidence to move, to go beyond stillness and dormancy. Spring can be pushy. If you look long enough you will also find patience and kindness within the season. Spring needs force but also suppleness. I wonder how to have enough force with enough suppleness. What’s the ideal combo and does it need to be reviewed yearly? It probably does.
I’m thinking about meeting this transition and I must do some warm-ups with the ligaments, because like wood, they are elements of spring.
When cold my tendons contract, and with fear they contract even more and hide and wait until fresh energy emerges, which is coming, on the way, possibly already here.
I’d like to meet spring on the springboard, already warmed up a little, already tuning into the groundwater and thawing dirt. I am stepping up to the launch, ready to plunge into a new field, which might look like other fields but it is still the new one for this season and so I have the chance to meet this place in current time with all my contained elements.
Salt water from the ocean is winter while tears can come from the winds of spring- they both fold into the new soil - bringing minerals of wisdom to a more rambunctious energy of pushing forward. It’s not entirely new growth- it’s always layered with things like ashes, decay, endings- the bass notes.
We are constantly in transition like seesaws or legs walking.
Now in the last bit of winter, the rain is heavy and lifts rivers and streams over and through dams and obstacles- washes and pushes out stagnant debris.
Winter rains feed bug life which helps pollinators thrive and we might all be pollinators going here and over there, under and around the corner encouraging fertility of all kinds.
Out walking in the morning, I relate to the mist rising.
I’m lifting out of the stillness, the wet ground, surrounded by budding limbs, grounded but rising on fresh wind.
Upstream and downstream, in the moment, in the transition of seasons, feeling my feet on the ground, drawing up the earth, stretching outward, looking forward and trying to keep some wisdom and clarity in my back pocket, following winter into spring.
Suppleness in body and mind takes endless practice.
To see newts underwater making newt balls for 2:00, watch this.
Winter to spring