Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious...

Ok, I'm a long way from glorious, and discontent is still skulking about waiting to rear its ugly head, but winter is over.

Winter is over.

Take a deep breath. Fill your lungs with oxygen, and then let it out slowly. Now do it again. And again. Winter is over.

Spring is more than a date on the calendar. It is embedded in our consciousness as humans. Whether we acknowledge it consciously or not, we feel the movement from death to rebirth.

Our pagan ancestors couldn't run to Wal-Mart in January and buy fresh strawberries from Guatemala or wherever they come from in the dead of winter. Spring was a big deal. They ate what they could grow or kill. When the earth became fertile again, they could eat. So they celebrated big. They danced and feasted and re-enacted the most ancient and enduring fertility rite.

The pagan world gave way to religion, but Spring still loomed large. Easter, Passover, the birth of the Buddha...birth, rebirth, escape from death...all celebrated in Spring.

I've performed my own Rites of Spring this weekend. I took 95 kids to the University of Kentucky library, an annual event I love. I drove with my windows down. I got my first pedicure of the season and wore open-toed shoes. I feasted with my family and sang and danced with my friends.

I feel lighter. In spite of the chaos in the world at large and in my own world, I feel the rebirth of hope. After today, the scale measuring the darkness and the light shifts, tipping to the light. The problems aren't fixed, but I can face them.

Winter is over.

Welcome Spring! Damn glad to see you!