What a gift is the Spring.  No need to force inspiration - - it is all around us.

Color, new growth, warmth, greater closeness to the earth - - Spring tells me that life rushes forward, with or without me.

Spring’s rebirth tells me to put aside my troubles, my inner demons, feed them a little less, so that I might produce more.  The demons will be there whether I produce or not.  And I can will myself to set them aside, escort them to another room, close the door, check on them the next day if I like.  But now other pieces, other energies need me and I them.

I wrote the song Threshold in a moment of inspiration just a few weeks ago.  That moment was a similar Spring growth, occurring and flowing forward, despite anything else that wanted my attention then.  What came through was  a musing about gratitude and how gratitude itself transforms and allows more room for other bits of inspiration to poke through.  

In the refrain of the song, I recall each time “ohhhh how I love you.”  And it is this truth that despite everyday demons, there is love that I can choose to live inside.

We face this choice on nearly every front today.  Why is the world so ill; why is there so much suffering, we wonder?  Why do people continue to hate when there is no way that hatred will cure anything?  I don’t mean to be reductive.  There are good reasons that people have fears that lead to hatred; good reasons that some believe there is no other way.  And yet.  When we are faced with gifts - - a daffodil standing bravely on a spot of grass along the sidewalk, a gentle breeze that calms the body, the greening that is everywhere - - we can at a minimum choose to observe and witness a fleeting bit of beauty.  In any moment, we can focus on the gift, inhale it, tuck inside.  The knowledge of it can warm us in colder, less forgiving months. 

Please embrace beauty now.  Despite and because of the pain and suffering. If we allow for both, we may move forward and create a better world.

(Hear the song on “Music” page of the website.)