Spring, and how we see it

The trees are looking a bit more promising these days. The twigs that looked so bare and naked in January have now, even at a distance, gained substance; and close inspection reveals that buds are waiting to make themselves known. Each year Nature does this and each year we think it’s doing its renewal act. But that would be to project our feelings on to the natural world. What’s happening is not ‘new’. Those trees have been there for many years, perhaps longer than I’ve been alive, repeating their season changes; and my own genetic structure comes to me at the tail end of several million years, ever since the first hominids became proto-versions of me. When we look at Nature it is tempting to see Spring as a ‘new’ season, as a fresh start, and so on. It's tempting to think that Nature is doing this for us. And that’s very wonderful; inspiring even. Yet I find it more stirring to see this as a cycle, as part of an ever-changing series of phases that will carry on long after I’m turned to dust, and which I am, once again, privileged to witness, at least for now. To be a small and insignificant part of such a majestic series of events is a source of wonder, and of gratitude.