It has been a long, rough winter. It feels as though it has lasted about thirteen months. Now as tomorrow we enter the time of Wabun, the spring it is looking as though positive changes might be coming. The spring brings new hope, a feeling of enthusiasm, a time that can illuminate all the darkness within and around us.
To fulfill the hope and be ready to accept the gifts of spring we have to look hard at what we have learned from the darkness, from the long winter of quarantine. For some it has been a time of loneliness, isolation, deprivation. For others it has been an opportunity to discover generosity, to look within our own darkness and work with what we find. For most of us it has been a seesaw between these two views.
For the earth this has been a time of regeneration, of cleaning up some of the messes humans have made.
The important question now is which lessons will we bring to the spring. Will we strive to make the new normal like the old normal; to forget the uncomfortable parts of the long winter and go back to being as we were before? Will we want to fling ourselves back on the sometimes destructive carousel of the old normal?
Or will we remember how this time has helped the earth, how helping others has helped us to feel more alive, more human. Will we acknowledge the lessons we have learned from looking within? Will we respect the clarity and wisdom we have gained and make them part of what life will be going forward.
We would do well to acknowledge that the virus is still out there, mutating, reminding us that humans are not the mightiest beings on Mother Earth. So many of us have sadly been taken to the next world prematurely by a small viral cell which still exists.
That thought can scare us or teach us we must hold on to the balance, the humility we have learned in the past year. If we do this it will help us to take our proper place in the circle of life.
The earth changes are here. The news reports them every day. There are many reasons for these changes. If you want to get a full view of them I refer you to Sun Bear and my book Black Dawn/Bright Day. The prophecies told in the book are being fulfilled on a daily basis.
But to me the most important part of the book is the sections that explain the different world views that have brought us to this time, the different views of life that have made these changes, long foretold as a possibility, our current reality. This part of the book, which deals with the early misunderstandings and arrogance that lead to horrific racial injustice toward the First Peoples of this continent, can help us to understand the world views which still keep us out of balance with the rest of nature. From that understanding we can learn to do our part, however small, to bring humans back into balance, back into the circle of life. We can become part of the solution that can help to bring about a true spring, a bright day for the earth and all of our relations upon her.
Spring is the time of awakening, of rebirth, of innocence. In the plant kingdom it is the time when the seeds in the earth shed their outer layers, put roots into the earth and send sprouts up to meet the growing light of the sun. In the animal kingdom, the males and females of most species begin to notice each other and soon young animals will be born.
For humans spring can be a time to clarify what we think, to have the wisdom to acknowledge what we know and what we need to learn. From these can come illumination, a shaft of understanding that allows us to grow new roots, nurture old ones, and begin to bring forth a new way of thinking and being.
These are the hopes, the gifts of a true spring.
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