Purple Spring Jewels
You’d think a 51 year-old gardener with lettuce and broccoli plantlings under grow lights in the front room would have an inkling that spring is on the way. So why did that flash of purple, four perfect crocus plants blooming in the flower bed by the front door, come as such a surprise? The weather had been warm this past week, true, but my heart was still in winter. I must have thought my optimistic seed planting last week was a lark, an absurd and probably hopeless act of defiance. Not only that, I tend to doubt the efficacy of any seed I plant. How could that ever grow? I’m sure I didn’t plant those seeds quite right. But what if it was exactly the right thing to do and I did it just fine? What if the moment to act is now, regardless of who says this thing or that can or can’t be done?
I’m reminded of long ago when I made wine. Even though I followed the directions (fruit + sugar + yeast + time = wine), I could never bring myself to believe it actually worked. It’s a chemical reality that yeast consumes sugar and produces alcohol, but I couldn’t get past what appeared to be a big jug of likely soured or else non-alcoholic liquid. That’s why the first glass I poured of my own wine (after sniffing and sipping to make sure it wasn’t vinegar) was in a 12 ounce tumbler. No kidding. I poured the glass full of what I couldn’t believe was really wine. And of course I drank it as I would any beverage from a tumbler: big, heedless gulps. Guess what I soon discovered? It was definitely wine. The process had worked as predictably and inexorably as the approach of spring and the sprouting of seeds.
The purple crocus plants, those precious living amethysts, cry out, “Live according to what is. Trust yourself in the context of reality. Beware the should nots and the can’t dos, the be carefuls and doubts that will hijack you from doing what might be exactly the right thing to do at the moment.”
Look at the signs, take stock of yourself, then go do what it is you know it’s time to do, however unlikely it might seem.
(Psst! Hey you! There's daffodils and pansies, too!)
