Spring Muse
When we’re aligned with the seasons and the flow of nature, we encounter similar “seasons” in our interior world. What cracks open my hardened winter shell is the emergence of the pasqueflower in late March. What, or who, is it that brings on each season within you…your muse?
All religions, spiritual paths, and people of no faith celebrate the sacred return of the sun – if you’re far enough away from the equator to have you heart pulled by the memory of the long, warm days of growth and possibility.
I’m talking about those of us whose hearts tire of the months-long cold, where dark steals the very light from the sky, ever so slightly, day by day until there is a perceptible shift that happens, and you know the darkness has you. That is the kind of interior landscape I’m talking about, where the soul starts to question if we ever had light at all like some fairy tale that we’ve told ourselves. And then, the winter solstice arrives with the promise of light, of new beginnings and the steady climb out of darkness. We non-equator dwellers revel in this time. In fact, the level of anticipation is directly proportionate to the distance one is from the equator!
But it’s a false prophet to me, for it brings little reprise in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, where the lengthening days are more of an insult than a blessing as it highlights the barren landscape. Spring in the mountains won’t be unveiled until the end of May. So, forgive me, if when everyone else is celebrating the return of the sun, I am watching for a truer sign that my senses will recognize…the rise of the pasqueflower.
Perhaps you were thinking I was going to say the return of the robin, but it has nothing on the pasqueflower that raises its purplish petals (botanically sepals) through shallow snow, poised on a furry stem that helps keep it from freezing. The etymology of Pasque is old French for Easter, an appropriate heralder of the spring and new beginnings as it leaps from its hidden tomb toward the end of March. The flower is stunning against the white snow and brown, scattered sarcophagi of those who didn’t survive winter.
Even its name is special. You’ll see many separate it into two words, pasque flower, as though it’s just another of the thousands you could encounter in any given year. Yet the botanical and taxonomic texts always have it as one word: pasqueflower, as though your eyes may be deceiving you to see a fragile plant mysteriously rise from its crypt, much like the Christian belief that Jesus rose during this time of year as well, against all odds and common sense.
The first pasqueflower I encounter becomes my muse. A sense of awe and wonder begins to flow from me in anticipation of emerging life. It ignites the growth and creativity within me, the reminder that the seasons that play out on the landscape, also happen within me. That is what the pasqueflower does to me every spring, reminding me that life is once again renewed, and the rest will follow. Many of us walk through life with fallow souls. What, or who, is the muse that awakens your divine path?
