And It Is Officially Spring

  Here we are ~ you and I ~ in whatever corner of the world you are in and it is the first day of Spring. Where I live there are distinct seasons and I celebrate each one. Winter is not freezing cold and snowy here like a lot of other parts of my country; it is days of consecutive rain and grey skies and dreariness. While you can still go out and splash in puddles and breathe the fresh air without freezing the lack of sunshine is so challenging. When Spring comes it is not just flowers lifting their heads anew it is people too! From my dining room I can see a row of four trees covered in light airy pink blossoms that remind me of tutus and clouds and cotton candy. My neighbors have old fashioned spring gardens full of blossoms like bluebells, crocuses, daffodils, tulips half grown, and snow drops that are almost done. It is a time that I cherish every year. The color after all the grey, the fresh, distinct, striking green of the new leaves and grass, birds back from warmer lands and the sunshine! Today I finished a book called, 'Surprised by Joy' by C.S. Lewis and I felt like it was fitting for the day. All my life I have been pursuing this certain illusive feeling. C.S. Lewis calls it joy and I think I would also. I have often felt like it was waiting for me just around some corner, if I could just capture it! The book I read today put some things into new perspective for me. So I will re write a small portion of it here for you and I.

'Instead of the two fold division into Conscious and Unconsious, we need a three fold division: the Unconsious, the Enjoyed, and the Contemplated.
This discovery flashed a new light back on my whole life. I saw that all my waitings and watchings for Joy, all my vain hopes to find some mental content on which I could, so to speak, lay my finger and say, 'This is it,' had been a futile attempt to contemplate the enjoyed. All that such watching and waiting every could find would be either an image (Asgard, the Western Garden or what not) or a quiver in the diaphragm. I should never have to bother again about these images or sensations. I knew now that they were merely the mental tracks left by the passage of Joy - not the wave but the waves imprint on the sand.'

There is much more I could write and quote but what I am taking away from this for today is that I have been going at this search in the wrong way. I cannot bring about joy. None of this is joy ~ none of the things we surround ourselves with and desperately try to hold onto or bring back into being again. I think we are looking for something more, something different that is not to be brought about by us or by our senses, it is so much deeper. There is also much MUCH to be said for being in the moment so we do not miss what we often do.

Anyway it is something I want to read again and again. I am loving how Lewis writes, which is a good thing, because what he has to say and how he has to say it is something I need right now. Happy Spring officially. Have a lovely week ~ Love Tansy