Love Everything

Spring is springing; the flowers know it, the birds know it, the trees know it. Every living thing is starting to hum the beginnings of the song of Spring. The vital upthrust of LIFE is present in the unfurling of seed and twig, in the just perceptible swelling of buds. It is in the brighter light, the greening of the returning green and the blue of the great expansive blue and, as ever, in the coming of Yellow. How I love you Yellow!

 Witness the unfurling of the voices of the dawn, more and more birds performing ever more complex arias to the earlier rising of the golden sun. The air gloriously layered with the multiplicities of euphoric and vital sound as the tuneful battles for territories begin.

Not everyone is speaking all of the time. Some are listening.

Some are looking. Watching and wondering.

Some are busy with other things. You can never know what, exactly, when it comes to crows!

It feels as if were perched on a moment where anything could happen..... In traditional British weather lore, if Imbolc was a beautiful day then the Cailleach was out gathering sticks for her fire. If she has been gathering sticks then she can keep her fire going for another few months, and winter will drag on. If the day is rainy then spring will come early. Imbolc was an absolutely exquisite day, clear and radiant. But Spring does seem to have come early, it's bursting forth everywhere. Then again, it's still only February, and things can change fast up here.

If the Cailleach was out gathering sticks then she's not the only one who's been busy!

We, or rather more accurately - Fergus, have gathered an impressive log pile too! I love the feeling of having a store of wood. Like having a full larder it makes me feel safe. There's a safety also in the feeling that Spring will be uncurling and the tendrils of new life will be offering food to the many, and the many will be birthing new life.

Life supports life. Life nourishes life. Even in all the deaths that inevitably occur amongst the natural rhythms and cycles of All That Is, there is life implicit in each death. Death implicit in each life, for the only thing you can absolutely guarantee in this world is that everything will change, and the one change you can be most sure of, is that everything will die. Someday. Maybe even the Patriarchy.

The Ravens are nesting. They are usually the first, although I have also seen blackbirds gathering moss and wagtails with twigs in their beaks. I watch them as they gather what they need for a soft and warm place for their chicks to hatch and this too fills me with hope. Hope born of the knowledge that change doesn't have to be about death. Change at this time of year is surely predominantly about life - new life.

Woven into my acceptance that things are as they are, is the little green bud of what I see as a new time coming for us humans: More and more of us seem to be waking up to what it really means to be alive on our beautiful Earth at this time. I see more people giving up buying single use plastics, more trying to be waste free, more starting to think about what they eat (where does it comes from, did it get here on an aeroplane, is it full of chemicals?). I have more conversations about ideas like Gratitude, Reciprocity, Equality, Sustainability, Earth-Justice, Grief.

And I know that even if winter does come back, underneath the ice and the snow Spring will be resolutely calling herself into being, bringing change whether we're ready or not. And I know that there are questions that seem to be arriving on the wind at the moment, for the many, or at least for more than just the few: How would it be for us to know ourselves as diverse, as multiverse - like the many layers of song in a spring morning, how would that be? Could we begin to share with all the rest of the diversity of life? Could we even begin to see that other humans, different from ourselves, are just as beautiful, valuable, lovable, worthy of respect.. what about other mammals? Other animals, other Earth Dwellers? Could we extend these privileges of care to our food? To our Air? Our Water? Land, Trees.....How far can we go?

Can we change our minds and therefore our behaviours? 

May a good vision catch me
May a benevolent vision take hold of me, and move me
May a deep and full vision come over me, and burst open around me
May a luminous vision inform me, enfold me.
May I awaken into the story that surrounds,
May I awaken into the beautiful story.
May the wondrous story find me;
May the wildness that makes beauty arise between two lovers
arise beautifully between my body and the body of this land,
between my flesh and the flesh of this earth,
here and now,
on this day,
May I taste something sacred.
—David Abram

May that happen for you too.