Spring casts a spell that turns ordinary people into lovers and poets, who note the new buds on their walk into work and bless them with gentle smiles. Perry Ellis, the author of our headline quote, brilliantly observed the “perpetual astonishment” of spring’s awakening.
We waited a long time for spring this year. So long, in fact, that someone suggested a new term, “Swinter” for the weeks of Northeast temperatures dipping back to February levels, when tender new daffodils were April showered with snow. Early April was cruel as well to the South and Midwest, savaging them with punishing winds and rain.
And finally, astonishingly … spring is here. We see a flower that has become itself and we can’t help but smile. Like birds and flowers, we humans move toward happiness in this season. Liberated from winter’s dark, cold oppression, spring’s rebirth renews our joy in simply being alive.
There’s something about flowers that make us happy. We smile when we see flowers, the way we do – instinctively – at babies and puppies. Researchers have begun to study the effect of nature on humans, and they find that flowers have both an immediate and a longer-term positive effect on mood. In one experiment, males riding in an elevator were handed a flower. Afterward, they were observed to have better social behavior, compared to controls.
What a good choice it was to designate April as National Humor Month!
Flowers also facilitate intimate, romantic relationships … but you already knew that, didn’t you?
Since flowers make us happy, it comes as no surprise to learn that gardening continues to be a popular activity, even in these days of life-lived-at-the-screen. Gardening is a great stress-buster. It is purposeful physical activity in our couch potato world that yields much more besides what is planted. It gives us the benefits of Vitamin D, of bending and stretching, as well as the fundamental weight-bearing exercise, digging in the dirt.
Gardening is time to focus in meditative fashion and clear the mind. It is even a path to greater meaning and connection. The gardener is literally “grounded” and can experience a sense of belonging to nature, to the ineffable, beautiful vastness of which we are each but a small part. The humble garden can nurture awe and gratitude.
It is no wonder that so many religions and cultures celebrate spring’s return, each expressing the astonishment of life, liberation and renewal in its own idiom.
Whether marked by holidays or gardening or just by windows flung open to the breeze, there are moments in this season when one is touched by the “perpetual astonishment” of spring. Billy Collins expressed his moment in his poem, “Today.”
“If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
“that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
“and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
“a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
“seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking
“a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,
“releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage
“so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting
“into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.”
(Source: “Poetry,” April 2000)
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