The spring season always brings about a feeling of anticipation.  Life beginning again after being dormant.   For me spring is a season of re-birth.  It naturally generates curiosity in my soul.  I find myself thinking “what if” and “how about” as I make plans to finish projects, take trips and be more spontaneous.  The doors to my imagination open and I am curious to try new foods and experience new places again.  It’s a change from the comfort I sought in the winter months of familiar places and time spent with family and friends.  It’s familiar this rhythm of hibernation and rebirth.  For me it follows the seasons and I gladly anticipate the change as it reminds me to find balance between the comforts I seek in winter and curiosity to challenge my limits in the spring.  It’s this ebb and flow of reflection and anticipation that continually challenges me to stay rooted but not be afraid to grow and change.  If only we could all remember that gentle lesson year round.  To stay rooted but not be afraid to grow.  To see change as a rebirth, an opportunity to re-evaluate and enrich ourselves.  Easier said than done, for sure, but perhaps that’s the purpose in springs reminder to remain curious and open to what is different and new. 

Every time you do a good deed, you shine the light a little farther into the dark. And the thing is, when you’re gone that light is going to keep shining on, pushing the shadows back.  ~Charles de Lint
           It is hard to remember sometimes that even the smallest of actions matter.  Recently in a conversation with my step daughter she wondered, in amazement, at the idea that you could pass a yawn around the world.  Yawns are indeed contagious.  A yawn can pass from family to friends and on to strangers, endlessly traveling forward in time, until the yawn that may have begun with you has returned again.   

I like to think its the same with smiles and kinda actions.  With embraces and greetings.  When we fill our actions with love and our intentions with kindness we shine a little more light into the shadows of the world as Charles de Lint aptly phrased.   

I keep this idea close to my heart remembering that the intentions I set for the present create lasting echoes into the future.  They ripple forward with their essence influencing moments not yet passed.  It is with this knowledge that I work hard to greet each day with optimism and a quite promise to myself to love without boundary, forgive with out a grudge and live with empathy and compassion.  It is my hope that by setting these intentions everyday that I will make the world a better place. That like that yawn I will pass forward, through small actions, a compassion that will shine a light in the darkest corners.