Spring is a Metaphor for Resilience

Over the last several years many parts of the world has experienced some extremes of weather triggered by climate change. I’ve been fortunate, while I’ve been noticing a change in weather patterns over the last decade, they haven’t been extreme changes. Something that doesn’t change no matter how severe the weather gets is the seasons.

Winter still shifts into spring which transitions to summer which fades into fall and the cycle comes full circle when fall folds into winter. In many ways, the seasons are the ultimate example of resillence. The seasons contain a constant cycle of birth, growth, decay and renewal. The spring season we’re now in represents rebirth and regeneration, a reminder of the ability to win over adversity.

You could run around and cut every flower in sight and beyond, you’d still not be able to stop spring from coming. Those plants might die but they would become the nutrient for the next round to germinate and grow. More plants and flowers will follow along behind, no matter what we do. Yes, there are ways to wipe them out in an area, but they will just shift elsewhere.

I have seen some images from the area around Chernobyl these many years after the nuclear disaster. Something that stands out is how much nature has re-established itself in the area where humans can’t live. The Chernobyl disaster happened in 1986, thirty-seven years ago. Some short-term presence of humans can happen in the exclusion zone but must be strictly monitored.

Very few things in life has any permanence. Sometimes we’ll have long periods which appear to be permanent, like I have lived in my home since 1988. That appears rather permanent but I hold no illusions that life here could change at anytime. Disaster could happen and the house could need rebuilding, my health might change and I may need care some where away from here or I may shift my perspective on my life and choose to move.

There is a constant ebb and flow to life, it could be small things like shifting from one seasons clothes to the next season or something as life-changing as changing your place of residence or who you live with. We think we have control over what we do, think or feel but often that control is more illusion than reality. The universe will have its way, eventually.