Shiny Cooking is all about delicious, mostly vegetarian recipes that use whole grains, natural foods, local foods, and fresh food from the garden, with an emphasis on heirloom (non-hybrid) variety seed stock. Check the "
May 3, 2010 in garden porn, notfood • leave a comment
time to blossom
In terms of making new beginnings and forging new paths, New Year’s takes a distant third on my internal clock. New Year’s is the new beginning of the earth’s rotation, marking the end of the year’s shortest day and looking forward to lengthening ones.
New Year’s is a quiet time, as far as heralds go. Party revelry aside, it’s marked by a sunrise a wee minute earlier than the day before, sunset a wee minute later. We are inspired to set plans in motion, but the still-long darknesses encourage long nights under the covers and slow-cooker meals.
First place for new beginnings, for me, is autumn. School is starting, whether we are still going or whether we are 20, 30, or more years out; it’s in us to buckle down, get harvests in, plan for those winter holidays that are designed to ease the tedium of winter’s darkness. Still full of summer’s energy, autumn is another time when plans are made, definitive and time-delineated.
Spring, though, while it takes second place, is a time of special beginnings. Everything is growing, blossoming, and we blossom too, even if it’s confined to a tiny space deep in our solar plexus. We can’t help it; we are bound to nature as nature is not bound to us. The apple trees don’t need our help. The bees will gather and spread the pollen. The currant bushes send up wild canes whether pruned by our hands or not.
Spring is when this blog began, last year. It didn’t emerge fully formed in June. It began in March, April, with research and reflection and coding.
Lots of coding.
what are your spring projects?
I’ve always had luck with projects begun in spring, and I think you will too. Form your plans in spring, work on them through spring and summer or however long it takes. Dream. Write down goals. Then write down the steps you can take today or tomorrow or next week that will go towards achieving those goals.
And that, that is the most important part. Dreaming is vital, recording goals is vital, but none will ever come to fruition without real, tangible steps you take towards those goals. Just so, pear trees will never bear fruit without the bees pollinating them, much as their blossoms’ goal is to become a pear.
What are your goals for this spring/summer? A garden? Reading some books? Canning? Making pie? Do share in the comments.
