We are gathered here to celebrate of the spring garden – this ceremony is meant to connect us to the natural moment that is happening all around us – to remind us that we are not lonely souls that hover above the earth, but that we are deeply connected to the earth! That we are connected to each other. This moment is meant to bring awareness to the fact that all personal and spiritual growth is mirrored in the changing of the seasons and the transformation of the earth throughout.
We have now come out of the winter- where it was cold, dark; we were in dormancy – the time of the year when we return to our deepest self and rest- nourishing our deepest thoughts and desires. During winter, the whole earth around us appears dead, but it too is resting, it too has returned to the deep well.
And now it is Spring- the light has come to wake us and the earth around us as well. The grass is growing. The ground has thawed, and the mud of spring is everywhere! The trees are swelling – their buds just about to burst open and bloom. All of the stored energy of winter is now available to the earth, now available to us!, for the work of growing- this moment is about planting the seeds of our deepest hopes and desires and devoting our stored energy to nourishing them to grow- out of the darkest, every year, comes this moment when Spring offers us the experience of HOPE and REBIRTH.
The force of Spring is palpable! It cannot be stopped – hitch a ride onto this moment and let it move you too!
In the words of the poet Pablo Neruda, “You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”
Today we will plant the seeds for this year’s harvest- carrots, peas, beets and lettuce- which, if properly tended to, and if the season allows it, will feed us! And I ask you, what else will you plant today? What hope will we sink into the earth? What will we collectively plant? What will we nourish, together? Let’s relish the hope today!
Let’s relish the end of the cold and dark. And as we plant the seeds, plant as small blessing or wish or prayer for this garden, and for the community that tends to it!
“The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.” Wendall Berry
