Watercress Spring

I took my first spring walk in the woods yesterday. The place was alive, but at first glance you wouldn’t know it. You have to peek, probe and be still to see that life abounds beneath and within the ground and even at the edge of branches and twigs.

There is something spiritual about the spring season. It’s a celebrating renewal and rebirth for many religious communities and disciplines, and it's a regenerating time for all of nature.

As I walked a meadow some of the old leaves from last fall are still embedded in the tan and matted grasses. The leaves are now a deep brown and black in color. They are withered, wet and drained of their nutrients in order to nurture renewed growth and new life from the seeding winter winds.

The Lichen on the rocks and trees seemed a bit greener in its grayish demeanor. I know that Lichen florets grow more slowly than Pluto orbits the sun, but this day, only to my observation, there seemed a burst of colored growth in their crocheted stillness.

All along the path were fallen limbs and branches pruned by the cutting winter winds and the gusting breezes of spring. I stopped to push and drag them aside so the path would be clear for others who follow.

At a pond I looked for signs of small fish, turtles, tadpoles, and water bugs, but I could only see an occasional gas bubble from the decaying leaves underneath the surface. It’s too early yet since the ice just left the pond last week and each morning, when it’s cold enough, there is a thin sheet of ice on the surface until the sun hits it a few hours later. Only then do the wild ducks descend for a mating dance and ritual.

Besides the trickling stream that fills the pond most of the year, there is a side spring that drains its underground flow into the pond. But there in the middle of the crystal spring was the brightest green of growth I’ve seen so far this early season; a patch of Watercress about the size of a large hug.

It got its early start from the warmer spring waters surging from deep underground.

In many ways we are like the watercress plant. We are warmed by deep spiritual waters from an inner Source and we grow despite the outward climate or birth conditions and our only nutrient is unconditional love. Amazing.