Archive for May 20th, 2012
Colours of Spring
Spring crocus May 2012
I do love spring, especially as I wander with my camera and spot new life emerging from the ground following the warming of the earth which had been frozen in winter. There is something uplifting in spotting these first wildflowers of a new season. They are so fragile yet somehow they survive winters of temperatures that drop to -30 and even -40 Celsius, temperatures that are made even worse by winter winds and the lack of sunshine which mark Canadian prairie winters.
I have specific associations with the colours of the crocus, the mauve and the golden centre, associations that go back to youth and the colours I would see in church services; the purple of lent and the gold of Easter Sunday. I know that there are other colours associated with Easter, but this intellectual knowledge takes second place in contrast to my childhood associations. Spring was about the delicate colours of new birth that arrived each year, colours that often found their way into the colours of clothing worn by the women that seemed to mimic the season. Though Easter has long passed, it is the colours and the appearance of these colours in nature that herald new beginnings and new birth – a rebirth of spirit – that have more significance. Nature tells me the real story, the story of time and place rather than the story of a fixed calendar.
It has been almost three months since I have returned to analysis, to the work of diving deep into the darkness of an inner world in order to reconnect and remember. Now, there seems to be a sense that light is beginning to rekindle external life with a new sense of energy and urgency, an up-welling of libido which demands that I live fully in my body as well as in my head. Yes, there is an urgency in this as the years of my life are racing towards a return to the source of all being. I am being told, “don’t sit back and wait for a better time for this is the time, now.”
And, I have learned to listen to the guiding voice within, to trust that guiding voice. And so, I begin to move back into the land of external life with more purpose and with dreams that will finally be honoured, dreams that have lain dormant for too many years. This was the inspiration given to me as I wandered the Canadian prairies and found crocuses there to encourage me to be reborn, to be reinvigorated with life.
