Tender Shoots

Identifying the Spring Blossoms

In California right now, flowers are blooming that haven’t been seen in years. Seeds lying dormant beneath the soil, brought to new life with the winter rains. They’ve been there all along, waiting for life-giving waters.

I invite you to take a moment and consider what season you are in, even if that is different from what is happening in the world around you. For those struggling with depression, springtime can be all the more challenging, with signs of new life all around.

Inhale: Extend grace

Exhale: Receive grace

What bodily sensations do you experience as you consider your season? As you consider springtime?

Wherever you are at is okay.

Maybe you don’t fit into a specific season. Or maybe, as the Recovery & Resurrection soul care group discussed, you are in Spring, yet experiencing the storms and floods of spring as well as the blossoms. With growth, often comes pain.

Inhale: resurrected breath into my dry bones

Exhale: trust in unseen growth

“Deep trust in unseen growth is absolutely necessary.

Beneath the seeming ugliness and deadness, Earth's life is awakening. Inside the thick darkness of predawn, the sun is getting ready to rise. Within the pregnant woman, unborn life is receiving some finishing touches.

Why do I get so impatient for my inner springtime?... Each year I see more clearly that I must be willing to pay the price of awakening: to wait without control of the process, to trust without seeing the face of the secret life that stirs, to hope without happy feelings, and to work with what seems to be little fruition.

The land waits. The dawn waits. The pregnant woman waits. I, too, must wait.”

~ Macrina Wiederkehr, The Circle of Life