Certain things are stored in our heads and no matter the scene we still try to apply them. In my head spring starts in March. That's how it was these past years. When I lived in the city. Hence my head is telling me that spring begins in March, everywhere.
But Stierva lies about a thousand meters higher than the city I lived in and therefore spring doesn't start in March, but much later. My head hasn't understood that yet and is completely confused when it wakes to snow falling once again. In May.
It has yet to get used to the season looking differently here. Although it still snows sometimes, spring is noticeable. The air is warmer, the days are longer. The first flowers are blooming and the ice in the stream has melted. The elder tree in my garden carries the first leaves and this lets my summerheart beat faster after an extraordinarily long winter. When I'm outside I'm almost always able to take off my jacket and soon, very soon I can finally start my first year of gardening. I just have to await the "frost saints". (According to popular belief in Switzerland, there are some days in the middle of May that are more likely to get frosty nights.)
I can feel how I have been connecting to the seasons and nature's natural cycles since living here. In the city I was quite oblivious to it. The winters were grey, summers hot and spring sometimes already started in February. That's how my brain saved it. But I wasn't aware of what the changing of the seasons really meant. Because for me not a lot changed. It seemed like I could buy strawberries the whole year round - if I had wanted to -, the soil beneath my feet always looked the same and I only really felt the intensity of the sun during summer, when I had time.
Here in the mountains I happen to spend much more time outside and I start noticing things. Small things that a few months ago I wouldn't have noticed. It's as if I have grown antennae that perceive the smallest changes. All of a sudden the last spot of snow has disappeared. The color of the water in the stream is much greener today than it was the day before. The dandelion blossoms opened over night. I'm finding snail shells and stones, like I used to when I was a kid. Stacking them on top of each other in search of their balancing point. Little bugs are catching my eye among all the earth's tones of brown, they shine golden and I take the time to watch them.
And so a thought forms: why wasn't I able to notice all these things when living in the city? Ultimately it's not the point to be surrounded by nature to see the little things, but to just walk your life with stretched antennae, more mindfully and slowly.
My head seems to go through a re-calibration right now. It starts to comprehend that a lot occurs in a different way here, that its life is different. For doesn't it happen regularly that an image in our heads tries to convince us something should look a certain way? And when that image doesn't correlate with reality we're disappointed or angry or sad. I believe that I'm learning to constantly re-calibrate right now, to adapt the image in my head to what I'm experiencing. Like the seasons, the weather, the moon we are in continuous change, too. Actually aren't these unexpected transitions the only constant in our lives? For we, too are cyclical beings. Instead of resisting it or trying to force the next cycle, I decided to surrender to those waves, to stretch my antennae further, to open all senses in order to be able to see the beauty that always surrounds me. In every unexpected turn of life.
Please watch my new video. You'll get some glimpses of my spring in the mountains.
Enjoy! =)
