Spring’s Fleeting Beauty, Eternal Truth

May 29th, 2015 · 4 Comments · Beyond Gotham

In the face-chilling, hand-freezing, blustery cold of a January night, who could have pictured these blossoms and flowers? In winter, many do not notice the gnarly branches of a crabapple or pear tree or the twisting limbs of a lilac bush, though they possess their own character and loveliness. Yet, there they are, strong, upright, swaying in a stiff wind or covered under snow.

Then the day comes, one we cannot time or set an alarm for by our human clocks. The tiny deep blossoms of a crabapple tree in the city park or on a campus shoot forth, seemingly appearing overnight, or the orchard of a local apple grower suddenly has rows and rows of white, tender, and glorious blossoms flowing in a warm breeze.

Apple Orchard Beauty

Apple blossoms

The springtime blossoming and flowering are of untold, exquisite, and often short-lived beauty. (Part 1 focused on their exquisiteness.) The apple and cherry blossoms, gracing a landscape with white and pink that just a month earlier was winter-worn, bloom one to two weeks or so. The longer-lasting visits from flowering trees, such as the deep reddish purple of an Eastern redbud, can last a few weeks before giving way fully to green.

In each blossom and flower lies the principle of fleeting beauty and eternal truth. In the blossoms and flowers lay deeper verities, whether lush magnolia blossom, tiny woodland violet, or delicate dogwood flower, about life’s cycles of dormancy and rebirth, endings and beginnings, stillness and motion, dark and light, bold hues after subdued color. “If spring were in the teaching business, which it isn’t, we would now be hearing a basic lecture on philosophy,” wrote naturalist and author Hal Borland. “All the elements are there, spring after spring, and all we have to do is supply the words and attend their meaning.”

Spring’s beauty – in hundreds of manifestations – calls us to notice, but doesn’t hang around to see if we have. Many flowers appear for several days, or a couple or few weeks perhaps, and then change over, with a tenacious insistence that life moves forward. The season’s gifts and richness, though deep in pleasure and lesson, exist in this moment.

April and May move inexorably to June and July, a quick pacing of natural forces that culminate and settle in to summer fullness. Spring humbles humanity because we cannot make its reappearance happen each year, no more than we can dictate a route and create a timetable for the hummingbird who alights at the backyard feeder or the marsh wren who glorifies a morning in Manhattan’s Bryant Park with song. However, we participate as we can and see in our surroundings a mirror for our life’s seasons and resilience. In their singularly stunning moments, here today but not forever, the blossoms and flowers encapsulate timeless truths.

Deep Pink

Pink flowers brighten the front of a Jersey City office building.

White Finery

Delicate white

Pink Up Close

Sun-bathing

Crabapple Buds Bursting

The brief and lovely bursting of crabapple buds in the Hudson Valley

Last Of The Magnolia Blossoms

Magnolia blossom

Delicate Apple Blossoms

Today’s blossoms where the late-summer and autumn apples will be

Part 1: The Insights That Blossoms Teach: Exquisiteness

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4 Comments so far ↓

  • Myra OFerrall

    Great article. The descriptions provide not only visuals for the eyes, but the aromas of spring and summer as well as the venue to hear the new leaves talking to us in the mornings, Sunday afternoon, or during a lovely evening. Thank you!

    • Susan DeMark

      Myra,

      Thank you! It’s awesome that this essay stirred your own senses in this wonderful way. I love the idea of the new leaves “talking to us.” They do arrive on the scene in such a spontaneous way, quite alive!

      I’m so happy that you enjoyed this piece, and you are obviously someone so alive to what unfolds around us. Talk about a gift!

      Susan

  • Phyllis

    I love your words on the life cycle . . . and how artfully you unfold in it the multiple and quiet messages of spring. Thank you for creating a stillness that has made space to take note and share.

    • Susan DeMark

      Dear Phyllis,

      Thank you for such a beautiful note, which made my morning, as sweetly as the birdsong I’m hearing.

      Even as spring’s changes occur daily, often quickly, they invite a pause to notice. I’ve been blessed to have teachers in my life, such as you, who have taught me about the unfolding and the layers.

      This is such an antidote for a fast-paced, plug-up-our-ears world, and a racing mind, I’ve found. I’m so happy you found this piece created a stillness to share in what is beautiful and real around us. Enjoy the day!

      Gratefully,
      Susan

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