The Hope of Spring

“The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another.  The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.”  Henry Van Dyke

Today is the Vernal Equinox, the official start of Spring 2015.  Where I live in California, the weather has been great lately—the 70s and 80s as the highs—and blossoms are bursting forth across the city.  I realize other parts of the country might be colder and gloomier, but it is still the start of spring.  So take heart!  Embrace the change, the hope, promise and expectation of spring.  As Margaret Elizabeth Sangster said, “Never yet was a springtime, when the buds forgot to bloom.”

When I ran errands the other day, I captured some of the blossoms that were evident across the city.  Even brought a couple inside to brighten the living room.  What signs of spring are you seeing in your neighborhood?

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SOME QUOTES ABOUT SPRING, HOPE & FLOWERS

“Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.”  Bertrand Russell

“It’s spring fever. . . . You don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”  Mark Twain

“Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways.  The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again.”  Sarah Ban Breathnach

“Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s party!’”  Robin Williams

“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.”  Zen Proverb

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”  Anne Bradstreet

“O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?”  Percy Bysshe Shelley

“The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring.”  Bern Williams

“Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.”  Doug Larson

“Spring has returned.  The Earth is like a child that knows poems.”  Rainer Marie Rilke

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt,”  Margaret Atwood

“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.”  Hal Borland

“Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love!”  Sitting Bull

“No matter how chaotic it is, wildflowers will still spring up in the middle of nowhere.”  Sheryl Crow

“Poor, dear, silly Spring, preparing her annual surprise!”  Wallace Stevens

“Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer.”  Geoffrey B. Charlesworth

“I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden.”  Ruth Stout

“The beautiful spring came; and when Nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also.”  Harriet Ann Jacobs

“An optimist is the human personification of spring.”  Susan J. Bissonette

“Spring is when life’s alive in everything.”  Christina Rossetti

“The flowers of late winter and early spring occupy places in our hearts well out of proportion to their size.”  Gertrude S. Wister

“Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made, and forgot to put a soul into.”  Henry Beecher

“Earth laughs in flowers.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Flowers leave some of their fragrance in the hand that bestows them.”  Chinese Proverb

Weekly Photo Challenge: Horizon

Quick:  What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word horizon?

For me, what thundered across my mind was a cowboy riding off into the sunset.  Then a ship appeared, getting smaller and smaller as it sailed off for lands unknown.  If the images stopped there, the connotation might seem to focus on departure, ending, some unknown future, maybe even loneliness

But the truth is that HORIZON carries a much more positive message. Horizon is hope, expectation, transition, possibility, progress.  The horizon marks a liminal moment marking change or passage from one place or emotion to another.  Some dash across that horizon racing to tomorrow as quickly as possible; others tend to linger, stalled by something—fear, apprehension, contemplation—perhaps daunted by expectation.  Fortunately, the horizon is magnetic, always pulling us forward. Horizon is akin to a spiritual journey leading the traveler to new adventures and people, future prospects, potential improvements. . . to the next horizon.

Here are a few of my photos that capture the horizon as if it were a static moment in time.  What new beginnings do they conjure up for you?  Which quote below clarifies what horizon means for your life?  I wish you all a world of beautiful horizons to strive for, to capture the promise of a brighter tomorrow.

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“[My father] had a name for the bottom of the sky–‘the hem of heaven.’”   Nancy Horan

 “We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.”   Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find the right road.”  Dag Hammarskjold

“Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon’s verge.”    Lord Byron

“Do not be in a hurry to succeed.  What would you have to live for afterwards?  Better make the horizon your goal; it will always be ahead of you.”   William Makepeace Thackeray

“A dream is the bearer of a new possibility, the enlarged horizon, the great hope.”    Howard Thurman

“One of the reasons that I accepted, once asked to do Star Trek, was to give a single child a chance to see the long thought, to see themselves some 400 years hence.  It occurred to me that we must ensure that we keep in front of children the ever-changing horizon.”   Avery Brooks

“We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon.”   Konrad Adenauer

“When we look up, it widens our horizons. We see what a little speck we are in the universe, so insignificant, and we all take ourselves so seriously, but in the sky, there are no boundaries. No differences of caste or religion or race.”    Julia Gregson

“Hope is the moonlight filtering through the trees,
Hope is the silent prayer that we make in distress,
Hope is the promise that we make to ourselves,
Hope is the happiness that we visualize,
Hope is the horizon that we reach, if we try!”  Balroop Singh