Suddenly, all around me the world is unfurling waves of hope in the form of leaves and blossoms. Spring is undeniable. As always. And as always we humans want to complain. "It is turning cold again". "Winter is back". "My plants still might die". But as much as some complain, we inevitably look forward to spring, to the return of light and warmth and color.
Three days ago I took this photograph:
Such a simple thing. A tree has burst into bloom. But what appeals to me the most about this picture is not just the blossoms but the contrast, the duality even, between the tree filled with blossoms and the bare trees around it, even the branch of dead leaves. It reminds me that time and life is so fluid, so short and yet at the same time so eternal. That spring, and even summer, is precious and brief, something to be celebrated. And yet I don't want to forget about winter. About rest and renewal. It is only because the trees have gone dormant and dropped their leaves that they can burst forth anew, filled with color and life. Growth takes energy, and strength requires rest.
This is what actually struck me, this idea of dawn, of awakening. What I love about early spring is this delicate balance between the bareness of winter and the budding new growth, the same kind of gradual awakening we see at dawn. Yes, eventually there is the brilliance of the full sunrise, but the moment that seems the most filled with promise to me is the early lifting of the light, the promise that the cycle will renew, that tiny new buds will come forth, each and every day, each and every year, each and every life.
I was thinking how fitting it is that the calendar year begins in Winter, when growth has stopped, when, in many parts of the northern hemisphere there is nothing green and blooming to be seen, just bare branches, and earth. Not death but sleep. I am reminded that in the Jewish Calendar the day begins at sunset, with sleep, a sleep from which we awaken. That in Genesis, God separates the light from the darkness, or the darkness exists first, and the light comes from it. Rest that fuels life, the darkness, the repose, the silence. Out of the silence comes thought and creativity and creation, life itself, and that life will eventually exhaust its resources and need to return to rest.
The human body is designed to need to spend one-third of its time in rest. Surely if this were not important, and the most efficient way for us to accomplish all that we can be and all that we can do, our bodies would have been designed differently. The only things that are guaranteed us in life is that we will need to sleep and we will die. To me, this is not something to be feared and dreaded so much as a reminder that we must bloom and flower and each be the best person we can be given whatever soil and air and time we find ourself inhabiting. We must bloom, but in order to allow our blossoms to come forth, we must embrace rest.
Perhaps we have it backwards. It is not our accomplishments that define us, but how we rest, how we allow creativity to blossom from repose.
