welcoming spring

pruning for beauty to bloom

Equinox (originating from Latin) means “equal night.”  It’s a transition point. Do you feel it too? 

Welcome spring.

Renewal and awakening. 

Growing towards more light. 

The balancing act of alignment. 

This marks the start of Aries season too, as the Sun moves into this fire sign.  We're greeted with the energy to emerge — the tenacity to initiate.  

It’s my birthday season, and I'm in the spring of my cycle too.  Day 12.  A new energy has been seeping slowly through me all week.

I begin new projects, plan the cycle ahead, plant seeds literally and figuratively -- and I watch the ones I've seeded begin growing towards the light. 

A few weeks ago, it was an unusual 70 F day and those warm winds called my husband and I outside to prune our fruit trees and blueberry bushes.

Pruning allows an abundant surge of new growth. Despite knowing this is best, I still feel a bit of grief in the process, watching the bud-filled branches of this summer’s fruit fall to the ground.

And yet… an offering. I’ve been wanting to experiment with “forcing blooms.” It’s when you can create the conditions (with water, light, and warmth) in this unnatural phase and season, for the buds to open.

So I gather up bundles of peach, apple, and forsythia branches. I cut the stems at an angle, and then also cut vertically up the stems about an inch to allow them to bring in water with more ease. I've had them in a couple vases in bright windows and have changed the water every other day or so to keep it fresh.

We prune in the transition between winter and spring, when all is dormant and the buds haven’t opened yet — a moment of transition between what was and what will be, between death and rebirth. Here in this moment, I noticed there is a gift. 

With branches in hand, anticipated blooms on the way, and gratitude for the offering, I realize I’m not “forcing” blooms or forcing anything -- I’m just doing my part.

It’s like the trees said, “here, I grew some extra ones. Do something beautiful with them. I’ll grow more abundant fruit and stronger branches if you take some of these now."

Nature invites beauty even in unseasonal circumstances, with a reminder that even when all appears dormant and dead, for me to ask, "what can I offer for beauty to bloom?"

Miraculously, as if right on cue, the buds just opened yesterday, welcoming Spring.

In one way pruning looks like destruction, and in another it looks like an offering, a gift of abundance — to do our part for beauty to bloom.

May beauty bloom where you are.