{"id":1876,"date":"2016-04-08T15:30:35","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T20:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mindfulwalker.com\/?p=1876"},"modified":"2016-04-08T19:54:03","modified_gmt":"2016-04-09T00:54:03","slug":"springs-first-sightings-a-meditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mindfulwalker.com\/wordpress\/beyond-gotham\/springs-first-sightings-a-meditation","title":{"rendered":"Spring\u2019s First Sightings: A Meditation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Turn off the clock and look at those tree branches, and feel the wind blowing through them. The outdoors provides the lungs of life. Each day what is outdoors vitalizes my life, with breath, space, and an exhalation into a wider world. That is so much why it beckons one to walk, to feel my feet upon the earth, my eyes to what is near and what is at the horizon.<\/p>\n

Every day its show unfolds. We miss so much if we simply walk past the life before us…the peace, beauty, the manifestation of time and seasons. Recently, I walked at the college campus I\u2019ve come to think of as one of my central parks. Suddenly, the sight apprehended me, the bright yellow of a flowering bush along the big pond. It caught me by surprise and created delight. I looked closely at each yellow bud-burst, shooting with abandon and order, simultaneously. The bright yellow was my first sighting of the spring flowering. <\/p>\n

I couldn’t have predicted it nor timed its particular day of arrival in this little corner of the Northern Hemisphere. In fact, the unusual warmth of late winter pushed the buds to burst earlier than usual. A cold snap in the Northeast, complete with snow, followed the early blossoming. (This caused some concerns about possible damage to the trees<\/a>.) The exact timing of the buds and blossoms are the new season manifesting, in ways we can observe and learn from but not control.<\/p>\n

\"Yellow<\/a>