One of the things I really love about these transitional seasons — like fall and spring — where things are busy dying and being born, is that it’s very easy to become aware of the fact that down deep, below all of it, there’s something larger, something much more powerful at work, pushing itself out into the world.

And so, on one level, we see the returning of the plants. We see the first flashes of greens and yellows and pinks and purples. We hear the birdsongs. We see the blossoms, like those in the ornamental Pear trees across the street, and that’s all just really spectacular.

But below that, way down deep, we’re also aware that that’s life… that untamable force pushing itself out into the world as these things, after all the stillness and death of winter…