In this modern world, it is easy for many of us to feel loosely bonded to the world's cycles. As many of our duties tend to stay the same through both heat and cold, the equinoxes and solstices may carry little weight. Yet the seasons do shift, daylight waxes and wanes, and, sometimes extravagantly and often subtly, nature changes her face. The four seasons are often associated with a joyous, eternal cycle of life. We can look to the cycle of the changing seasons to create meaning within our own lives. In each season, there is a prevalent mood that can inspire poignant reflection. Autumn ushers in crisp, chilly mornings and evenings. There is a shortening of days and a lengthening of shadows. Winter creates a bare landscape bathed in bright, pure light. Spring is a time of regrowth and new possibilities. While summer is a time of long days during which the rich fullness of those possibilities can fully blossom. Like the changing seasons, life is cyclical. Look back over the years, and you can see your own symbolic springs, summers, autumns, and winters.

Each new season brings with it familiar joys that can be pleasurable to reacquaint yourself with. Try eating seasonal foods and participating in seasonal activities. Decorate your home with spring flowers, yellow and brown leaves, or holly. Give in to your body's seasonal desiresEmbrace the feelings that each new season awakens within you. Above all, savor the changes, knowing that each season that passes will come again. Always remember that each season can connect you closer to the earth's cycles while bringing something special into your life.

Spring comes when the earth, coaxed by lengthening days and warmer temperatures, begins to awaken from her winter slumber. She stretches open to receive the rain that gives drink to flower buds and seedlings. She takes a deep breath, and on her exhale the leaves on trees unfurl like tiny flags heralding her revival as baby animals tumble forth, trumpeting the good news to all who will listen. Rebirth and repopulation fill the void of winter with flurry and fury as what appeared to be gone forever comes into being once again. Even though it happens this way every year, we stand in awe, our insides trembling sweetly like the legs of a new foal as we too are reborn.

This is when we fall in love, again, speak without thinking, say yes to things we would normally refuse. It becomes more difficult to say no when the whole world around us appears to be an astounding affirmation of the resilience, richness, and plain, perfect beauty of life. We may find ourselves feeling several years younger and 10 pounds lighter without changing a thing. We may feel the urge to cleanse our bodies with a new pattern of eating, clearing our kitchens of cold-weather comfort foods and filling them instead with lighter fare and fresh fruits and vegetables. We may clear our closets of old clothes or cut our hair to express a new facet of who we are, and who we might become.

Springtime inspires us to believe that, along with the earth, we too might change, release the past, and give birth to new ideas, and new perspectives. In honor of spring, we could make a list of the many possibilities we envision for the future and bury it in the earth, surrendering the fertile seeds of our imaginations to the nurturing soil. In tune with the season, we can then watch in wonder as the last of the snow dissolves into the rich brown earth, and stark winter gives way to green possibility.