Spring

“A flower blossoms for its own joy.”

Oscar Wilde

One Easter weekend, when I lived in Calgary, I took my camera up onto Nose Hill, a designated urban park- a natural preserve of rolling hills, prairie grasses and plants. Coulees, stands of trembling aspen, birch, pussy willows, sage brush and wolf willow its attractions. A place to wander and explore within walking distance of my home.

On this particular day I was interested in the emerging prairie crocus, nudging its tender stems into the cool brisk winds blowing off of the western mountain ranges. In the late afternoon light the purples and blues of the crocus blooms were lit through with a stunning transparency. The tiny hairs of their stems individually highlighted, as though painstakingly outlined with a white artist’s pen. I could not get enough of these wonders, large clusters of them, nodding in the wind.

Sometimes hidden in dry prairie grasses lying brittle and unkempt after a long winter of frost and snowdrifts, sometimes mingled alongside the reddish pussy willow bushes, low to the ground and protected, even in stone strewn hills, clusters of fragile crocus petals could be seen in every direction.

When life’s circumstances and experiences bring us down in spirit, energy, or sense of purpose and meaning, we can sometimes be helped along by looking at what is around us in nature. The crocus is at once both fragile and hardy. It is resilient. In this time of spring, burdened by the knowns and unknowns of Covid19 I will be reminded of my walk along the hilly Nose Hill terrain one spring evening, a time where I enjoyed a spring spectacle and felt the beginnings of new hope take root in my spirit.