Spring

Having written posts on Autumn and Winter, I could not let September go by without writing one on Spring. It would be easy to go with clichés about new growth here, but I thought I would try to dig a little deeper here.

The promise of new growth

At the beginning of Spring the promise of growth is apparent, but we have no way of knowing what that new growth will really end up looking like (apart from knowledge gained from past experience). We don’t know if trees will produce usable fruit, or how much they will produce, or whether they will be wiped out by bugs or weather events before maturity. When applying this metaphor to human life, there is even less predictability and more variables, but it is nice to experience new beginnings and initial promises of growth.

The need to prepare and nurture

In the garden, we will benefit more from the new growth if we have prepared the soil well, beforehand, and continue to feed and water the plants. This is so in human lives as well – new skills need to be practised and new ways of thinking repeated until they become familiar.

Cutting out the deadwood

As new leaves began to appear on bare branches in my garden, the deceased wood became much more apparent, and I was more confidently able to use the secateurs to cut it off and make more room for the new healthy growth. In our lives, leaving old deadwood can inhibit our ability to move into the future with confidence, and it can begin to strangle new ways of thinking and being, pulling our minds back into the negatives of the past (thereby inhibiting the new growth).

 A time to sow new things

I have been eagerly waiting for the weather to warm enough to sow seeds for flowers and vegetables and am rejoicing that the time has now arrived!  Sometimes in our lives we too need to wait for the right “climate” to make changes or take on new things, so that our efforts have more chance of succeeding.

Remember: He/ She has half the deed done who has made a beginning.  Horace