Meanwhile The Sun

Spring is in the air! I know it may not seem so everywhere and every day but there are signs if you use your senses to see, hear, and feel them. My favourite sign occurs before the natural world tells us it is spring. Tulips arrive in grocery stores and flower shops. I have a bright blue Mason jar on my kitchen island waiting for the first tulips to bring light into my apartment each spring. Brilliant pink and orange tulips! But even silent, simple, gorgeous white ones. And then nature starts to give us hopeful signs. The sweet smell of the sun on damp earth as it awakens. Birds start to greet the dawn. Anything that can bloom, blooms.

Yesterday the sun came out here in Vancouver. At long last! After weeks of rain that I thought would never end, the sky dawned crisp blue and the sun greeted all living things, awakening them. My soul stirred. Perhaps I have been too busy to listen, to see. But I finally heard birds, smelled the earth and noticed just how brilliant Mother Nature can be when kissed by the sun. I ventured out of my apartment for a short but glorious photo adventure, using a wonderful blog post locating cherry blossoms sightings by Vancity Buzz as my guide. You can see my efforts above.

Feeling the welcome warmth of the sun on my pale face reminded me that wonder is all around us if we take the time to notice it. It doesn’t always have to come in the brilliant form of cherry blossoms. It can be as simple as a good song on the radio, or a warm meal, or a visit from a friend or a call from your family. In the hustle and bustle of our busy lives, it is easy to miss these little gifts that can so easily warm your heart or lift your spirit. Just this morning I was reminded of this by one of my favourite author/bloggers, Neil Pasricha who wrote 1000 Awesome Things. His Ted Talk about his journey to write his blog and this book is a favourite of mine and for some reason, today it re-surfaced and I listened again to the story of a young man who found the “awesome” in simple things after a trying time in his life. He learned to listen, see and feel again and sure enough, life presented tiny gifts of gratitude just when he thought his heart wasn’t ready to listen. I highly recommend this short 17 minute story. It will make your day and maybe even your week!

In celebration of our awakening from a long hibernation, I would like to end this post with a poem called Wild Geese by poet Mary Oliver:

Wild Geese

“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.” 

From Wild Geese: Selected Poems