“Remember that you are soil…”

The sun is setting later and rising earlier. There is a gradual warm up in the air. I’ve seen the leaves of crocuses and daffodils begin to poke through the ground.

It’s beginning to feel like spring.

And with the the springy feeling upon us, my thoughts begin to turn to my garden. It’s odd in some ways that Lent coincides with the onset of spring. We have forty days to contemplate loss, grief, death, and mortality just as nature is, at least in my part of the world, putting all of its energy into regeneration, renewal, and resurrection. Granted, those are all completely appropriate themes for Easter, and maybe if it weren’t such a spectacularly beautiful day outside, it wouldn’t seem like such a contradiction. But here it is, Ash Wednesday… the first day of Lent… it’s beautiful outside and the last thing that I want to think about is being dust.