Heroes Not Zombies

Here in the Charente, March is a month of emergence. Officially, it’s Spring. Well, I’ve read three ways to determine Spring actually – you can go by the appearance of Spring flowers, like the crocus, or you can take the “meteorological Spring” which falls on the 1st of March, or you can wait till the “Spring Equinox”, one of two days in the year where the number of hours of day and night are equal (that’s March 20th in the Charente). Well, in the Northern Hemisphere, anyway (you guys in the Southern Hemisphere have your Autumn Equinox when we, here, have Spring – and vice versa). Oh, and, it’s not exactly equal day and night, but pretty close.
I think of Spring as a time of awakening. The bare branches of the trees begin to bud and flower, and the Spring bulbs push up their green leaves and unfurl their gorgeous petals. It’s a sort of time of beginnings.
Mind you, I also feel that Autumn is a time of beginnings, but that’s because I started University (Edinburgh) in the autumn, and began my first job as a Junior Doctor on the 1st of August (1978). In those days there were two variations of training doctor contracts, six month ones and twelve month ones, so we all started jobs on 1st August, or on 1st February. It’s probably changed since then. However, that rhythm of new academic years and new training posts over a decade has embedded a sense of beginnings for me every Autumn.
Spring, though, feels like a more Nature-attuned time of beginnings.
So, I went off yesterday on a blossom and bud hunt. I took quite a lot of photos. Up top here is the kind of phenomenon I was looking for.
And here’s one of many cherry blossom photos I took. I love the delicate pink colours against the blue sky, and the delicacy of the stamens reaching for the sky!

Back home I found a tulip which had revealed her red petals since the day before ….

and the tree peony has five buds this year. Here’s one of them, just beginning to show a hint of her pink petals.

The appearance of the cherry blossom is greatly celebrated in Japan, with daily reports on TV and the front pages of newspapers, showing maps which follow its path from the south to the north of the country, and thousands of people setting off to have picnics under the trees, or to stroll around admiring them and photographing the blossoms.

So, here’s what I recommend for the next few weeks. Take a local safari. Go out, on foot, on your bike, or drive around and see if you can spot buds and blossoms. When you do, take some photos. They don’t have to be works of art. It’s just a great delight to focus in on emergence, to get up close and personal to new signs of life, new expressions of Creation, new beginnings.

What you do after that is up to you. My hunch is that kind of experience changes how you feel about the day.

If you’re in the Southern hemisphere, then its time to capture a different phase of change. Here’s a link for Australia. And here’s one for South Africa.

But you tell me……wherever you are in the world, what changes do you notice this week, as we move towards the Equinox?