What a glorious spring. Everywhere you look, the beautiful dance of life is taking another turn.
Nature is exquisitely tuned to the rhythm that keeps the dance humming in a harmonious, synchronized fashion. The blooming of flowers attracting the pollinating insects and then the migratory birds. The abundance of food in a warming season enfolding new babies in a welcoming landscape. The germination of seeds requiring temperatures cold enough to wear down the seeds’ tough coat followed by warmer temperatures that soften the soil and allow them to sprout. Trees biding their time through their specific number of “chill hours,” deeply resting in winter’s cold before responding to lengthening days and warming temperatures. Each plant’s unique set of signals cueing it to take its turn blossoming.
We humans have our own biorhythmic dance with our sun, its light and the energy of spring. Feeling light on our face and warmth in our bones gladdens our heart and moves us on a soul level. We are deeply entrained, just like the alders and pear trees, to respond to the length of days. The more sunlight, the lower our melatonin levels and the higher our serotonin levels. Our mood, energy and focus improve, we wake early and go to bed later, needing a little less sleep. We are drawn out of our hibernation to join the awakening chorus of life, the birds, the flowers, the unfurling ferns and the blooming roses. To open.
Everything is in an accelerating phase—the comfrey that just last week had barely emerged is now 2 feet high, fully formed with purple bell-shaped blossoms spiraling forth. What miracle of CO2, sunlight, water and life’s instructions can yield such growth? Can you feel this acceleration in your body, your home or your community garden? In your intentions, your projects, your life?
In my conversations with friends, patients and community members, and in witnessing my calendar and the steady stream of juicy community events on offer (so many simultaneously occurring!), it is clear There Is A Lot Going On Right Now. I think of us as those little seeds who have been through a long winter. And in some ways, we have been dormant for a couple years’ worth of winters, scarified in some ways, changed in others, but increasingly ready to re-engage, to send up little social sprouts, to feel the warmth of others and the spring sun. This social acceleration invites us to thoughtfully consider how we want to re-emerge into the social realm.
One thing I’ve been reflecting on is the human tendency to push ourselves past our natural limits. Presumably, our wild neighbors such as the mama deer are not pushing themselves past what their own crepuscular nature instructs them to do at dawn and dusk, while resting during the day and night. An exhausted deer is one that is out of balance and likely sick.
As we consider how to rejoin the exuberant human expression of joyful convenings, we can reflect on how we have a certain amount of energy available to us. Perhaps an apt metaphor is weeding a garden bed. Precious priorities, like time with my children, are the plants I’m tending, the ones I really want to see flourish. There may be other activities, habits, commitments or relationships that, for one reason or another, have some sort of a competitive advantage or at least siphon nutrients away from what we really want to prioritize. Imagine the possibilities for the plant, or the relationship, if the intention is not choked off by weeds.
What if we could reinhabit our natural bodies, our circadian rhythms, and rest when we are tired, saying yes only to the things we can accomplish in a natural day? What if we could lean into the accelerating flush of life energy but not to the point of over-extension? What if we listened for what is too much, even if it is less than what it was a few years ago? Nature does not push herself. She unfurls.
In this beginning of June—a time celebrated by many in our human family as the beginning of the warm, fertile, summer season, may we take time to just be in the beauty. To lie down under a tree and watch the intricate dance between bee and blossom. To feel the warm sun on our face, its penetrating rays boosting our mood, strengthening our bones, modulating our immune system and reminding us that it is good, and right, to take time to rest. To make space for dancing, for sharing food and drink. To stop and smell the roses, the irises, the ceanothuses. To drink in water infused with lemon balm, or elder flower, or thyme. To give a loved one a flower or a gift on a doorstep.
Perhaps that is the natural human way of attuning to spring: to appreciate with our senses how wonderful it is to be alive in all this beauty, and to slow ourselves down enough to drink it in fully.
Anna O’Malley, M.D., is an integrative family and community medicine physician with the Coastal Health Alliance and directs Natura Institute for Ecology and Medicine in the Commonweal Garden.