Welcome, Spring!

Welcome, Spring! We greet you joyfully on your first day and, as always, we’re glad to see you in the tiny buds on the trees and in the almost opened blossoms on the bushes. You remind us of new beginnings and fresh starts. You bring us new hope for resurrection. You call out to us to run barefoot in the greening meadows. You show us nature waking up.

You are our proof that we survived another winter. Now we can feel the sun’s warmth instead of frigid winds. We can sing our songs in soft spring rains instead of in winter storms.

I love the following narrative that is such a lovely description of Spring.

Meanwhile, spring came, and with it the outpourings of Nature. The hills were soon splashed with wild flowers; the grass became an altogether new and richer shade of green; and the air became scented with fresh and surprising smells — of jasmine, honeysuckle, and lavender.

― Dalai Lama XIV, Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama

So we are waiting with great anticipation for all the special things you bring us — brilliant cherry blossoms, a fresh crop of spring grass, verdant fronds of fern, blooming azaleas, tulips and daffodils, blossoms of yellow, pink and purple. And bugs, lots of bugs, more bugs than we really want.

Even so, we really do welcome you. Thanks for leading us gently into summer’s heat. We need that.