Emerging

Human+Nature, Morton Arboretum, 2021

We cannot fully see ourselves. We catch glimpses, here and there. For we are etched with the words that we - and others - have bestowed upon us as we move about the earth.

These utterances are only ever partial, imperfect interpretations of who we are.

Like our insect kin, we emerge from our winter slumber eager to take in and take on everything we could not during the previous season. We are hungry, tired of stasis and reach relentlessly toward a light that is still low on the horizon.

Like petals pressed together in a bud yet to bloom, we wait for the external signal that will shift us into a different form.

Yet as surely as spring rain becomes snow, returns to rain and falls to the earth in frozen flakes again, we cycle through states of being.

This is natural. This is normal.

In springtime, if we allow ourselves to pause and to notice, we realize that we are no different to the rest of Nature. We, too, answer the universal call to emerge into the fullest expression of ourselves, to shapeshift into whoever the world needs in this moment.