Spring is Here!

The spring Equinox is today, and I think it is supposed to warm up later in the afternoon. This week in Asheville, NC the morning temperatures were well below freezing. There were flurries and we needed our woollies. I had my fireplace going during my morning meditation and covered myself with a heavy blanket. I swear my blood is thinner since I moved to Florida over a decade ago. But no complaining. I live in the mountains and by the sea. It’s dreamy, until it isn’t.

So why am I not in Florida now? I was supposed to be, but air travel and weather complications got in the way, so I’m here for a few more days, then hopefully I can stay put in Florida for a bit of time. The shuffling is challenging as an artist, writer, and entrepreneur, but given our world circumstances, I have nothing to fret about. Just a new way of thinking about my current choices.

The big news for this Spring in our family is that our niece and her husband welcomed their first baby this week. This bundle of joy is the first of the next generation in our large, extended family, making me a great aunt (and Stephen a great uncle). We couldn’t be more excited! Nothing like a baby to dim the pall of these dark days we are living through. There is so much hope when a baby arrives. The family intimacy of the experience distracts from the world stage. Suddenly, an entire family is figuring out what stroller to buy, what car seat is the safest, what “handle” our brother and sister will use, and how we can help without being in the way. Our family is close, even though we are scattered all over the country, so our week was filled with sending texts, photos, and making joy-filled calls.

This was an exciting week astrologically, too, if you follow the stars. There was a full moon in Pisces, the last of the sun signs in the zodiac. As the full moon was in the last degrees of Pisces, there was a sense of closing out the year and clearing out any lingering issues, while opening a new season and new astrological year with clarity and brightness. We can only hope. Clarity and brightness are so needed right now after the prolonged darkness, secrecy, and chaos we are dealing with as a collective.

Which brings me to the purpose of this Springtime blog. I am an optimist. I am like the kid in the proverbial joke who receives a pile of horse manure for Christmas and immediately dives in, digging feverishly with the hope that, if there is manure, there must be a pony somewhere in the mess. I am drawn to positivity, hope over despair, and solutions rather than prolonged worry with challenges big and small. Those who know me sometimes find my idea generation astounding, at times overwhelming. I don’t just have a plan A, B, and C. I can pretty much run through the alphabet if necessary. I do not give up. Ever. As a result, I am somewhat indefatigable. I do not have a hyperactivity disorder, it’s just how I am wired. That doesn’t mean, however, that I do not get down, need support, or get cranky while in the process of a potential plan discovery. And I am impatient with others who do not understand that most of my ideas will never come to fruition. Discovery is a process of figuring out what works and what doesn’t. It requires vision and patience. That process is like being a world explorer—some routes work and some do not. We can only plan, seek counsel, and then execute the best of the ideas, all the while knowing that the most successful plans need continual redesign. We live, after all, in a dynamic reality. I have many mantras. One of them is, “We only need one idea to work here.” And then I usually present my top two or three.

Recently, I was trying to work through a super challenging interpersonal situation with a friend when she barked, “You think you know what’s best for me better than I do.” The moment was lost on her that I do not think that about anyone or any issue. I just generate more ideas than most people. So, I think aloud for those that rigidly adhere to how things have always been done, or who create competing plans, just spinning their wheels. Ideas are free. Sometimes old ideas are best for the moment, but new, fresh, out-of-the-box ideas are what make diplomacy succeed, relationships last a lifetime without feeling suffocating, allow companies to stay afloat in a crisis, and enable healers of all kinds to create personal paths to wholeness again for their patients/clients. Different and untried can be scary for some folks, but I think that is exactly what Springtime teaches us: It takes courage to start again, but there is hopefulness in the process of rebirth and renewal.

Many of you know I am an avid gardener. I have moved fourteen times, and I have moved parts of my gardens with me like other people move their furniture. My gardens are my joy, my happy place. They are my connection to the generations that came before me, that put their hands in the soil to grow food, to build shelter, and to create a sacred bond with the earth from whence we came to whence we will all ultimately return. That bond is reciprocal. We learn so much from Mother Earth and I believe we must be her good stewards. Before the cold weather, this week we had a warm snap here in Asheville. All my plants, trees, grass, and the surrounding forest started greening up. Birds were singing. I had a crow that kept visiting. If you are into folklore, the Native Americans believed that crows are messengers. They are either bringing a message from a loved one or waiting to carry a message to a loved one. I saw it as a sweet sign of the forest, and we just looked at each other for a while. As an aside, crows are smart. They talk to their buddies, and they remember things that happen to them. So, while we should be kind to all creatures, especially those whose homeland we’ve invaded, there is a selfish motive to be kind to crows. They will get you if you are not nice. I’m not talking about scary like Alfred Hitcock’s The Birds, but that baseball cap you left out to dry might go missing.

As I was walking my property last week which is a couple of acres (including a thinned-out, storm damaged, forested lot behind my house), I realized how improvisational nature can be. I love walking, bending over to push leaves aside to find a plant pushing through the dirt, making its way to the light. Or finding a plant missing from the garden only to see it further into the woods where an animal had dragged it. The downed trees from hurricane Helene were mostly removed, although we left many of the root balls. Some trees we had split for firewood. We did a lot of the clean-up ourselves, which was therapeutic and restorative. The root balls now serve as their own garden spaces where little bushes have taken root atop the dirt-filled tree remnants, and vines from the forest floor are climbing in and about the downed trees. These vignettes fulfill nature’s hopeful promise that life springs eternally.

I am very excited by my entire North Carolina property, adjacent to the Pisgah Forest and the Blue Ridge Parkway, but I am most energized by my meadow project. I previously wrote a blog about all the benefits of the meadow and how I researched the plant materials and engaged in local partnerships to bring that idea to the land. I have added new material, removed other plants, and I closely monitor the meadow throughout the seasons. Yes, even in winter, when my eager landscapers want to beautify the property and remove feeding opportunities for animals by topping berry bushes, cutting back grasses, and other provisions of routine landscape maintenance. Now we work in tandem to create hibernating places for smaller animals, and food for them, as well as for migrating birds, by leaving berries and pods on bushes and grasses. The ground is not raked, nor are blowers used in the meadow or the forest area, as these actions can disrupt bugs, lizards, ground nests, and snakes.

My improvisational meadow project seems to be ready to burst into bloom! A variety of green pops of color have begun peeking through the dirt and debris. Some debris will be relocated to mounds scattered in a few strategic locations on the property. And like all living endeavors, some plants are not strong enough for the changes that the environment imposed during this last year and will not make it to this new season of hope. But they had their time in the sun, and they lay as nurturance to the next generation of life and beauty in the meadow, loved and appreciated when they lived among the other inhabitants in the garden.

I gain such inspiration from nature’s lessons. Each season brings newness, unpredictability, and the need for decisions and choices. The decisions are impactful to the ecosystem, like the potential for attracting pollinators, including bees and hopefully a beekeeper. And, of course, cleaning the air. The deer and bears are a nuisance at times, and while I’ve lived with garden critters all my adult life, including deer, bears are a new kind of annoyance for me. Today I saw bear tracks in the forest. The tracks looked like a small bear wandered through. I didn’t follow the tracks to their end path. But these larger animals were here first, so, I better get used to them because I don’t think they’re going away. I do like seeing them at dusk through my windows.

Helene and Milton, the two hurricanes that wreaked their devastation fifteen months ago within a two week period, serve as a metaphor in my personal life for that time period, too. I experienced an abundance of loss on multiple fronts while cleaning up from the two hurricane events. Yet, I am lucky enough to be forging ahead, starting a new enterprise at almost 70 years old. Living my best life. Attracting new buyers, potential co-operating business partners, establishing new relationships and opportunities from which to evolve and grow. My business goal is to create small, real-time gatherings for like-minded women who enjoy art, books, and being in community. In the meantime, I have created an online following and hope to continue doing so. These folks will be the source of creating real-time, small get-togethers. It has been challenging to move into a more technical realm for business, especially as a creative person. But these challenges are temporary. Solving the problems unique to melding art, books, and women over the age of fifty into a virtual world feeds my curiosity to understand the younger generation and their interconnectedness to each other and technology. Additionally, it enables me to bring along other women who are averse to exploring technology and create opportunities for them as well to remain professionally relevant as they age.

All of this is to say, Springtime is here. Let’s try to be hopeful that we can improvise a future we didn’t plan on but want to thrive in. We must show up, communicate, take risks, and try to bloom where we land—where we are planted. And sometimes, just like in nature, it isn’t where we thought we were, who we’d find ourselves with, or how it would all look but joy is for the living, the hopeful, and the vibrant. And, it is better when we share. Even if it’s just for a season, but hopefully for a lifetime.

Enjoy the blooming days ahead. Happy Spring!

With Gratitude.