How to Pay Attention This Week

Endings that lead to expansive beginnings.

The snow returned over the weekend—just enough to cover the soil for a bit. In the sunshine, though, it glistened like diamonds. The sun came from nearly due East now. I have seen the shadows shift for weeks, and even if I never saw the sun, the shadows alone would tell me the time of year now.

On my morning walk today, the snow told the story of all the new beginnings and life emerging. The green grass is beginning to poke through. The tiny feet of mice and voles scampered in the darkness of the new moon. By the time the moon returns, I believe the land here will no longer have signs of winter or very few of them. The world here feels far more like spring than I have ever remembered March to be in the past.

Everything from the last growing season is soggy, degraded, and ended; beneath it, new life spikes. This is a reminder that even as time passes and things end, there are always new beginnings. I still can remember the way the leaves looked as they shifted color and then soon enough fell to cover the forest once again. I think of all the life they gave and now give life again as the buds form where the leaves once were.

In the fall, we get that chance to have gratitude for what we must leave behind. We let it go with a heart full. When we meet those things again in their degraded state, we see how much they still have left to give, even as they decay and return to the Earth. The cycles and patterns of expansion that happen in nature repeatedly inspire and amaze me season after season.

In many ways, I find the same thing happening in my life. When I was younger, and it was truly just me facing the world, I now see how my life has been a series of endings that led to expansive beginnings. At some point in life, I believe it circles back in again, but in this stage of life, there is an expansion with every ending. A path I cannot deny is inspiring to watch happen in life.

So, as we approach spring’s arrival, I watch every ending from fall and how it expands into a new beginning, whether in nature or myself.