Finding continuity as spring blossoms

Spring has certainly sprung. Buds, blossoms, lambs, warmer weather...we are blessed with the turning of the season and the seeming newness of so much life.

It’s easy to forget as we look with enthusiasm for these new beginnings that they do not arrive out of nowhere. Plants have been over-wintering, biding their time and saving their resources for new growth. Bulbs were there in the soil all winter, it is only the shoots that are now newly appearing.

It seems important to me that we honour not only the change, but also the continuity, and the natural rhythm of the seasons as they turn. As one thing begins, another has ended, and the changes are often transitions rather than singular events.

This puts me in mind of our mental transitions as things change in our life. There may be a sudden event, a death, a birth, a relationship ending or beginning, a new house etc etc. We adjust to these things gradually. Having moved home myself back in October, I am aware that it is only now that my locality is beginning to feel more familiar and normal, it’s only recently that new patterns and habits are being formed.

We may expect ourselves to suddenly burst forth into newness and adjust all at once, but like the plants, we sometimes need a winter to strip back and lay bare, before we can then begin to re-build. Perhaps kindness and compassion for ourselves in times of change, of any nature, are the most important thing.

What changes are you coping with in your life at the moment? How best can you help yourself transition?