The fields are still covered with snow, but this week’s rain is doing all it can to change that.
Meanwhile, we’re still balancing between winter and spring.
April brings a new pace and longer to-do lists. It asks us to be present to our work while constantly thinking of what’s to come next. As the weather shifts from snow to mud, it asks us to shift from indoors to out, from seed to sprout.
And everyday: seeding.
Seeds anchor our days. They anchor us to this soil, this land. They anchor my mind as it scrambles about, which it seemed to do quite a lot this week.
But no scrambling now. Now is the time to tell you how the greenhouse is greening, like summer starting from the inside out. It’s the time to tell you about the flats of lettuce, mustard greens, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.
All that growth. And yet, sometimes I stall.
It’s a messy transition between winter and spring. The white canvas of snow that welcomed reflection melts into mud, ruts up the road, and floods the river.
We’re finally ready for long days and warm air and the time to put our dreams into motion, and then get pulled into potholes and have to inch along just as we yearn for speed.
It’s the moment just before the leap, the transition between planning and acting, that we must look at the things we hold and decide what to let go of, decide what will serve us and what needs to melt away with the last of winter’s snow.
It’s the transition that asks us to slow down and look into the mud. It’s not always easy, but if we don’t slow down, the ruts and potholes will break us before we get anywhere.
Now’s the time to look closely, to sink in, to plant a seed in the thawing earth.
Sometimes–often times–slowing down and letting go are the only way to keep growing.