Spring

It’s been Spring for a month now. The Elm trees close to us on the golf course are fully leafed out and the Honey Locust trees along our patio wall are starting to make shade and those long seed pods on them that fall all over the patio all winter are just beginning to form. The patio pots and flower beds are showing color – it’s a pleasant place to sit afternoons and evenings. The water flowing from pot to pot and the robins, finches and doves visiting the bird bath are constant entertainment. Those orange and purple violas below are celebrating our Clemson Tiger national football championship.

I suppose that if pinned down, Fall would be the season I would name as favorite. But Spring is the time of year when the spirit within stirs with hope for renewal. It is not just grass and trees and shrubs and flowers that sprout and green and bloom at Spring. There is a stirring within us also that we sense not only in ourselves, but also in a spirit of anticipation recognized in many we encounter.

The tin dancing girls were left by the prior owner of the house – we put in the block terraces over the winter. We found the tin decorative sun you see between the girls underneath some mulch we were moving – we hung it on the stucco wall and put a pot of ornamental grass beneath. We’re hoping the nursery will get some New Guinea Impatiens soon to plant in the flower bed at the foot of the girls. You can make out a tin Kokopelli statue with his flute we received as a Christmas present at the left of the picture, on the terrace behind a desert sage we put in a pot a couple weeks ago. It’s a winsome scene that brings a smile and chuckle to me at times.

Deuteronomy 28 contains words from Moses to the nation of Israel as they are about to leave the years in the wilderness and enter the promised land. In verse 12 the words speak of the blessings God will bring on their new land,

“The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands.”

The anticipation of the blessing of bounty is fulfilled in Spring in the high desert where we live. The melting snow held high in the mountain ranges of the San Juan’s and Sangre de Christo fill the banks of the Rio Grande. The water is shared in the river valley by the farms and residences and the trees and fields and gardens turn green. The land is worked by those who love it. The new life we see is as if all we’ve been working for is being fulfilled before our eyes. Dreariness fades and hope is enlivened. Life’s circumstances may not change, but Spring brightens the perspective we see them in as each day adds renewal of life to behold – changes all around us, too beautiful to ignore.

We’ve lived through a Fall, Winter and now Spring in this New Mexico high desert climate. We couldn’t be happier so far – Summer is coming – it’s hot and dry here in Summer – we’ll see how it works out.