There is still snow on the ground and it’s the end of March. The sun is out more often and I just learned a new fact, which explains why it doesn’t feel warmer.  When there is snow on the ground, its energy is used not to warm, but to melt the snow.  Add to this fact, the layers of ice and snow on the ground making it feel cold.

I sit on a bench near a pond watching a pair of geese resting upon the still frozen pond. Aren’t they cold? Are they awaiting like me for the ice to melt? 

This winter seems to reflect my life. Long, cold, dark and difficult. The transition from winter to spring this year reflects my life also—leaving me with the fear that these dark and difficult days have no end.

We had a few warm days late winter. Then we were pulled back into winter’s harsh conditions. Here we experienced unseasonably cold days even while the Solstice arrived upon the calendar—staying cold for a week or two after its arrival.

This week we have experienced warmer days while also being warned by meteorologists that another cold blast is on its way. If I were to take reality for what I see and experience right now, which I have grown accustomed to doing during these dark days, allowing myself to accept what is and finding reality more substantial than fantasy, then I would  wonder will spring ever spring or will it be winter forever?

I moved back home to Minnesota in December after spending two-and-a-half years in California. If I were not from Minnesota I would aasume winter is all it has to offer.

But I know spring arrives and she does so when she’s ready. On her own time. Not to scorn us, which is what we might believe the way some of us complain about the weather. She does so by her wisdom. Her way. Her truth. The only way she knows.

But even while I say this, some days the best I can do is muster up the strength to only consider that somehow someway new life is inching its way toward me. Some days it is so hard to believe that underneath the ice and snow is a powerful force rumbling. The geese know it as they sit in the slightly frozen pond. The chickadees know it along with all the other birds whose songs spring forth during this time. And in some moments I can take this knowing and apply it me like a salve, reminding me I too am of nature and I follow its rhythms.

Although its been dark and cold and this is all I have felt, and could see there is a power rumbling in me. A power that will melt the ice and the snow. She’s spring birthing new life—and she is in me and in you.

The Soul Reporter