Joy Blooms

Joy Blooms…
By Lynn Koerbel, a teacher and trainer at CFM—who finds endless lessons in weather, seasons and the natural world.
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I was reminded of a quote last week as the snow flew and raw cold continued—flaunting the calendar page marked “April.” Here it is, from Parker Palmer:

“There is a hard truth to be told: before spring becomes beautiful, it is plug ugly, nothing but mud and muck. I have walked in the early spring through fields that will suck your boots off, a world so wet and woeful it makes you yearn for the return of ice. But in that muddy mess, the conditions for rebirth are being created.”

Last fall I planted bulbs and wrote about that experience here (link). Last week, in the middle of snow and rain, those grape hyacinths and the startling yellow daffodils defied the precipitation and pushed through the mud and muck, through the plug ugly to show their ravishing selves.

Last week, my friend and colleague Carolyn West, with whom I often teach, taught me about veritidas, a central theme of Hildegarde de Bingen’s life work. I’ve been reading about this and thinking about the pulse of life—especially in the spring. The origin of veritidas seems to be a combination of two Latin words: Green and Truth. Green as in growth, freshness, vitality, and vigor. And Truth—as in what is true, real, whole, entire. Can you feel, even in reading these words, the energy of veritidas? Green truth? Of growth—continuous and in alignment with what is deeply recognized, intimate and known.

Nature is such a generous mirror, and we are not outside this majesty.

We, too, push through the mud and muck to show our ravishing selves. But we are apt to recognize this more in others than ourselves. Children, especially, remind us. Yet each of us moves through that which wants to metaphorically suck our boots off. We persevere. We fall down. We get up. Over and over… The greenness of new life depends on the muck and mess of primordial ooze. We may want the glory without the fight, the birth without the pain, the ease of night without the toil of day, but it just doesn’t work like that.

We fight the truth of the natural world until we wake up and see the patterns that foster life. We plant bulbs. And if we’re lucky, the conditions are such that they bloom. It’s not rocket science: It’s both simpler and far more complex than that. It depends on the darkness of night, the coldness of winter, and the patience and trust that the sunlight will return.

So, however veritidas is arriving where you live and grow, step out into the light. Greet yourself with as the same enthusiasm you reserve for the buds and blossoms, the unfurling green, the sound of bird song. What have you planted and waited for?

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Brava, Lynn! Thank you for the reminder, and the encouragement.

Warm regards,

Julie

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Thank you lynn for sharing that you finally are enjoying spring. Patiently waiting and savoring its arriving .
It reminds me at something I heard at a silent retreat by Cristinne Feldman 4 years ago:
“The opposite of boredome is delicious”. I did not get it then and i knew that it was true. A few times since then i have experienced the mess,mud and muck of this feeling. With curiousity and patience i can feel the open and lightness in my chest that I can savor it as delicious.
I guess there not birth without pain, not spring without its winter. Vulnerability and then resilience what a wonderful thing

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Dear Delia, What a powerful dichotomy: Boredom and deliciousness. And yes–the muck and mud and then, the lightness… these relational states that inform each other and potentially open us to hold them both. Thank you for your reflection!

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VXX
Perhaps this nugget can form a link in our delicious springtime poetry daisy-chain❤️:

“Look at the pattern this seashell makes.
The dappled whorl, curving inward to infinity.
That’s the shape of the universe itself.

There’s a constant pressure, pushing toward pattern. A tendency in matter to evolve into ever more complex forms.

It’s a kind of pattern gravity, a holy greening power we call viriditas, and it is the driving force in the cosmos. Life, you see.”

-Kim Stanley Robinson

Also, here’s some of the local muck ;)

“I am likewise the fiery life of the substance of divinity. I flame over the beauty of the fields and sparkle in the waters, and I burn in sun, moon, and stars. And with an airy wind that sustains all things with invisible life, I raise them up vitally. For air lives in greenness and flowers, waters flow as if alive, the sun, too, lives in his light, and when the moon comes to her decline she is kindled by his light, as it were to live again… Thus I, the fiery force, am hidden in [the winds], and they take fire from me, just as breath continually moves a man, and as a windy flame exists in fire. All of these live in their essence and are not found in death, because I am life”
-Hildegarde de Bingen

Have all the parties from your original post found refuge and put down roots?

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Thank you Dan for all this rich sharing. 9/10’s of the daffodils I planted are blooming. The grape hyacinths are fabulous and I don’t think I lost any of those. There’s one VERY wet spot in a part of the garden and there are probably 7 or 9 sodden daffodil bulbs down there… It was a risk to put them there–but everything else is bursting. Thank you for these quotes and the picture.

Warmly, Lynn

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Dear Lynn,
Thank you so much for this beautiful post! Spring arrives in Ireland after a long, long, mucky winter and it has been pure joy for me to walk with my dog each day under the unfurling leaves and the early morning symphony of birdsong…I am so grateful for the daily glory and nourishment of these gifts. Inwardly I move through a time of muck and toil, but the intention to find the good and turn towards nourishment is firmly planted in my being and each day the natural world blesses me abundantly. Gratitude overflows - for it all…the mud and the glory!

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I’d say, too, what little I’ve experienced in Ireland, that this “mud and glory” is well known in the Emerald Isle! And of course, in the region of the heart-mind, this is a truth that we don’t always remember or honor. Thank you, Fionnuala…