New

This time of year is so lovely. Everything is bursting out with life; bright green leaves and fresh new shoots so vibrant and full of life seem to grow by the day. The shades of green are vibrant and light. Later the leaves will darken a bit but right now the trees are shinning bright. The garden is full and lush. The people in the streets seem more alive too. Some of this is a projection of course but not all. The weather has been warm and benevolent. On a warm late spring /early summer day it's easy to see life bursting out in the new. And it feels good; we naturally resonate with fresh new growth. The ever moving life force seems evident and ascendant. In autumn / winter we tend to see death and decay and think of life as receding. Yet this is not so; it is only the form of life which changes. The life force with change, movement, continues. Yet here in spring it seems we find what seems to be the very reason to be - to experience this very newness. Full of promise and unspoilt, teaming with zest. How sad it would be if it never matured, grew old, never merged with other parts of life to become 'lived-in'. Like a new pair of shoes still perfect but not having ever fulfilled their purpose. An old shoe, soft and stretched, worn and tired is its own spring. Each ending a new beginning; birth and death in each moment. It is easy to see this on a crisp bright winter's day, less so in a damp dull November. Yet the birth of dull days is still birth. Decay looks like death but it's life for fungi. What spring time brings is resonance with our own life force. A resonance possible because of the cyclical nature of existence and our coming out of voidness, our becoming. It is this becoming which is so attractive. Stillness and change go hand in hand - yin and yang; opposite sides of the one coin. The coin seems more able to see its self in spring.

I try to keep my own mind and attitude open and fresh, holding lightly that which arises whilst still learning form experience; that delicate balance of 'spring' and 'maturity'. This for me is meditation. Of course I 'fail' a great deal of the time! Writing about such things is a challenge. As an engineer I'm trained to be specific and precise. When trying to write about 'spiritual' subjects this can lead to the text sounding dogmatic and that's not so helpful. The text above is there to be 'knocked down' as it were, to invite contemplation and further investigation. It's not intended to be a final word. The idea is to merge the new and the mature without the arrogance of the rigid. The poets have the edge here; fingers pointing at the moon and all that. But I think writing posts has helped me be a bit more mellow; a little less terrier like. Ruff! And middle age seems to be for me a time of rebirth. I start to feel one way of being recede and an other emerge. For some what emerges can be stale but I'm thankfully not finding to much of that and I do hope to get progressively lighter and more open, more new and not just old. Time will tell if this proves to be so!