[Seasons: Spring XIII]
Somewhere in the middle of spring, which is roughly the first week of June, the natural world completely wakes up.
The last of the spring flowers are up and in bloom. Weeds have built momentum in the garden and are now a daily chore. Spring-born animals already have doubled or tripled in size. The small nubs on fruit trees that were the promise of future harvest are recognizable shapes.
June is the spring month of no return. The growth and momentum are too powerful to control; one can only give into it.
I like to think of spring as collective energy—all the forces of nature, including the different components on the farm, are working together toward universal advancement. It defies our metrics of progress and our measurements of efficiency. The energy is both synchronized and chaotic, orderly and random. It’s excessive and yet nothing seems wasted. It doesn’t appear to have a common vision but seems to all be headed somewhere.
Mid and late spring are a micromanager’s nightmare but an artist’s dream: all the color and energy one could dream of with none of the protocol and control. In this way appreciating spring without seeing it as work-needing-to-be-done is a spiritual discipline. I’m reminded that nature doesn’t operate according to a users manual but is instead the outflow of divine creative energy.
