Spring – and the Burst of Renewed Aspirations

SPRING

The country habit has me by the heart,

For he’s bewitched forever who has seen, 

Not with his eyes but with his vision, Spring

Flow down the woods and stipple leaves with sun, 

As each man knows the life that fits him best,

The shape it makes in his soul, the tune, the tone,

And after ranging on a tentative flight,

Scoops like the merlin to the constant lure.

From The Land, Victoria Sackville-West

As we come to Good Friday, and Passover night, I cannot help but look into the season framing these two colossal stories here, in the Northern hemisphere.

In the Haggadah (the story of Passover) you find a passage:

                     ‘I led you out of Egypt,

                      not an angel

                      and not a seraph

                      and not a messenger,

                      it was I Myself and no other.’

Who is this I that leads us?

Passover, a long night of retelling the story of the exodus of the Hebrew people from Egypt.  A story of hardship, of stubbornness of heart, of natural disasters, of desire to rule over people, and that of fear of leaving the known hardships into the terrifying unknown of freedom.  A story that describes the falling of all that is secure, both of Nature’s rhythms and of societies rules, to escape through the parting of the sea, to a new world.

Whether you read the story as fact or myth, it is a story of man’s awakening to one’s own worth.  A story of being brought to a moment of choice to find oneself anew, or resign to the old.  A moment of Trust and of crossing to a new world. It is the Hope that is given in every new blossom and burst of nature’s glory; in the scents, sounds and colours of Spring. Can one resist the power surging through the veins to rise and be reborn?

Reborn, as so poignantly we are reminded of the resurrection following Good Friday.  From betrayal and suffering to a death leading to resurrection, to a higher realm of existence.  Is this not our calling every Easter? Every Passover?  To remember the pain and suffering man can bring to his fellow men, and step into the possibility of ones own higher power. One’s own calling.  Step away from the shackles that have wound their way around our ankles and heart, and be freed for another glorious spring of opportunities.

Hope firmly drives the new intentions into a frame of mind. Into imagining of great possibilities.

But action too is required, otherwise summer, autumn and winter will come and the future will be bare, as the known fable so wisely tells us.

Rabbi Hillel used to say:

                        ‘If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

                        If I am only for myself, what am I?

                       And if not now, when?’

(from Pirke Avot)

I am born in spring and have a personal deep connection to its feeling of renewed purpose.

I hope you too can stand on the mountain, look at the promised land and see the new path ahead. The path your heart attunes to and opens up like the flowers in spring.  May you take the first step to walk on that joyous path, break the safety and confines of your chrysalis and fly like a butterfly to rich pastures.

Have a happy and meaningful Easter, Passover, and Ramadan.

Amen.