The First Day of Spring

Yes, for you nit-pickers, today is not the calendar-based vernal equinox. That fell on March 20 this year. But, it is my official first day of spring - the first day my windows are open. With highs in the 60's, I cautiously cracked selected windows to create a modest cross-draft. Cool, but not cold, fresh, energizing, invigorating, cleansing, rejuvenating. These are, to me, some of the attributes of spring, all manifest today. And this is the first day of 2005 in which this particular combination of sunshine, air pressure and celestial blessing have come into alignment to make for us a "spring." Spring is a season, a combination of elements, a state of mind, a range of time characterized by certain events such as the blooming of crocus and daffodils and twittering of the dawn chorus. It is marked by smiles on frustration-frozen faces, the tentative advances of males towards females in preliminary reproductive rituals, the hopeful packing away of snow shovels and sidewalk sand.

Spring is, most definitely, not a date on the calendar. Of course, you might argue that the year has divisions based on cycles of the moon, orbits and rotations of the Earth, etc., but that is still, frankly, arbitrary. We decided that these parameters would define our seasons. Nature was not invited to the vote. The accumulated consciousness of Nature decides when spring begins (or summer, fall and winter for that matter). It takes a deep breath and exhales the pent-up clouds of winter's toxicity. In rushes the clean, new start to life's year. Why life's year? Because spring signals the start of new life. The flowers are born from the soil, the waters run again liquid to provide the womb for tiny fish, the first twigs and branches are scouted for avian cradles.

And Nature is not negligent in regards to this responsibility. It does not look at the black and white grid that marks our divisions of the year, but rather relies on its own bottomless well of knowledge and experience. When is it spring? When Nature says it is spring... and it said "today."