SPRING HAS SPRUNG!

March 20th...the First Day of Spring!  Webster's II New College Dictionary defines Spring as "The season between winter and summer."  Oh boy, that's exciting!  The Thesaurus wasn't much more elaborate with synonyms like:  stem, sprout, start, arise and germinate.  Music to the ears of every horticulturist.
Another term for Spring is the Vernal Equinox (meaning equal night), the date when night and day are nearly the same length.  Surfing the Internet, one can come across all types of interesting facts.  The first day of Spring also marks the beginning of Nowruz, the Persian New Year.  The Sun is positioned directly over the equator...and other such trivia.


To my way of thinking, Spring signifies a time for growth and renewal, a time when many people search for new meanings to their life.  New beginnings, new plantings of ideas, new hopes, and new goals for the coming year.  After turning over the earth, it's a time to plant the flowers, the gardens, the trees and shrubs, and to watch over them carefully, knowing that we will soon see the first sprouts of our efforts.   I recall the many gardens my mother and father tended with care and love.  They knew that every seed would "spring" to life; all they had to do was water and weed to insure that the germination went smoothly.


Spring for me is a metaphor for New Beginnings.  In many ways it is a description of our life at this particular point in time.  Having prepared the way through planning and intention, Paula and I have been transplanted back to the warm soil of California.  We've intentionally uprooted and replanted a "growing plant"...our life together... from the high desert of Arizona to the coastal lowlands of San Diego.  We loosened and dug up the roots we had grown in Prescott, wrapped them lovingly in the burlap of our memories, and brought it all to Rancho Bernardo where we have planted it with care.  We'll carefully  watch over this new transplant, watering and fertilizing it, fully expecting that in time it will grow and blossom in new and exciting ways.


P.S.   Spring has "Sprung"...with lots of wind and rain.  Better to grow and nurture those new plantings.