Seasonal Series: Celebrating Spring Through Your Senses
As the earth begins to awaken from the beauty sleep of winter, spring is rising up like a morning mist.
Today’s episode is a poetic, pleasure-filled journey through the simple rituals and elemental delights that give spring her slowly ripening, lush radiance.
The crunch of first asparagus, the first day without the need for an overcoat, the sweet sound of birdsong coaxing our bodies back to life–these are just a few notes of the symphony of pleasures that await you today.
Whether you’re basking in blossoms or still watching snow melt, let’s luxuriate in this springtime love letter to your senses.
With petals underfoot,
Mary
LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
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Hello, beautiful beings, and welcome to today's episode, which is all about how to revel and roll about in the clover of the seasons by celebrating spring through your senses. This episode is a recast of a previous episode, but as the tulips are popping and the daffodils are singing, I could not resist bringing this gorgeous spring frock out of the closet for another rendezvous through your neural pathways. So enjoy today's episode and Happy Spring!
So here in the Northern Hemisphere, we are celebrating the arrival of spring. And wherever you might be in the world that's experiencing spring. You might be on the side of the spectrum that I am here in warm California, where we're getting plenty of sunlight and the buds on the trees have bloomed into first blossoms. Or you might be in a tundra corner of the Midwest, for example, if you're in the United States, where the trees are just beginning to hint towards even the notion of green. And wherever you fall on the spectrum.
Today's episode is really a tribute to the seasons, and the seasons is such an important part of the practice of coming to our senses. You know, when I think about that expression, come to your senses. It's that moment where things snap into focus and where we're able to shed whatever trance we happen to be under in that moment. If it's the trance of fear, or the trance of conditioning, or the trance of shame. And we come to our senses and awaken to the present moment and to the truth that presence offers us, which is that everything we want, everything we yearn for, really at its core, is right here in this body, in this being, in this moment, on this planet. I just had a moment like this where I was eating lunch. And even me who has made this. Her life's work was like, oh, I should go outside. I should take a break in the sun. You know how it can be. The way that we've reoriented our movement towards the light, to move more towards the blue light of our screens during the day than the golden light of the sun. And so I stepped outside onto the stone path that leads up to my home, and allowed the sun to kiss my nerve endings on my skin, and allowed that moment where I was expecting the air to be cold and I was expecting to contract. But actually the air was very temperate and warm without being too hot, and I noticed my nerve endings unfurling like fiddlehead ferns saying, oh, come closer, warm air, let me melt into you. And I looked up, and one of the ways that I come to my senses is through dappled light. When I see the leaves moving over sunshine and see that shadowed pool on the floor, it's just a moment of the absolute symphony of beauty that the earth and the cosmos provide for us in every moment.
And as I looked up towards the trees, I saw that happening and it was like, oh, right, here I am. Here's what really matters. Here's what brings me life force to the banquet of meaning and magic in life. And I came to my senses and the part of me that had been operating again in that habitual mode of get things done, get ahead, remembered that the real way to get ahead, which when it's interesting, is that when we say get ahead, what we're actually talking about is getting to a place where we can be present, and that the real way to quote, get ahead is actually to slow down. And so I share all of this with you, a because I just wanted to launch into a poetic tribute to the moment that I just had and the glory of remembering my own mission. And I share that particular piece, because if anyone out there has ever compared themselves to someone who teaches something you want to embody, and you think that person has it mastered and that you're just some schlub plugging along, just know that every single teacher I've ever met teaches what they want and need to learn. I digress. Back to the seasons. The seasons are one of the most profound portals to coming to our senses. I was just speaking with the sanctuary members yesterday. The sanctuary is our feminine presence collective, and we were talking about how when we operate in a season of perpetual harvest, as so many of us do in modern life, what happens on the inner is that we go into a perpetual experience of winter, where the pressure to produce and produce and produce on the outer actually causes this contraction on the inner that may still yield fruit, but that is pale, flavorless lumps of imitations of nature's true capacity and our own individual natures true capacity, when we operate from that place of pressure and push.
And so these tiny rituals that I'm going to share with you today. Are ways that we can remember our true nature, and by looking towards our outer world and the wisdom of nature for guidance, it can help us make more sense of our inner world. Across cultures, the study of nature, and particularly in more indigenous spiritual traditions, the study of nature provides the template for everything that we experience in our inner and outer outer worlds. And springtime is this time to once again celebrate the tender new beginnings. You might notice yourself around this time having a craving for things like fresh lettuce and greens, or feeling more inspired to move your body or to go outside. You might feel new ideas and fresh desires starting to come to the surface. And this is not by accident or circumstance. It is the body's very real and intelligent response to the way that the sun and the moon and the earth are dancing together in this particular expression of their dance. And so at springtime. Some of the ways that life makes love to us through our senses are through delicious, fresh food and produce. Some things I love to include in my basket at the farmer's market are fresh asparagus. I once read this book. I believe it was home sweet Mason. Or was it Madame Chic? Nope. Just pause the recording. It was Home Sweet My Son by Danielle Postal van.
And it's a treasure of a little book, a real gem, where she talks about some of the differences in French decor and design and the French art of homemaking, particularly in how it compares to the American way of home banking. She's American, and she married someone who's French, and she tells this story about a French woman named Jacqueline, who, around the first warm days of spring, invited her over for a ritual of first asparagus, where once asparagus comes into season, she cooks up a huge platter of grilled asparagus and this delicious aioli and brings that sweet, crunchy green velvet ribbon. That's really more of, I would say, crepe ribbon, but I digress. Maybe linen actually, but she ritually uses the first asparagus of the season. And so that is one way, one thing you can pop into your basket of gems is modeling Jacqueline's ritual of first asparagus. Some other ways that spring whispers in our ear is through the feel of sweat, soil underfoot, or underneath our fingernails as we scratch and dig in the earth to plant seeds, or Nestle fresh basil and rosemary into a pot for our windowsill. Spring sings to us through the voice of the birds. She lingers on her tongue in the taste of fresh honey, the abundance of gold and pouring honey and bees drunk with nectar. With heavy bellies straining their wings, she reveals herself through the striations on a tulip petal. I mean, God, there is just so much abundance and so much pleasure out there available to us that Mother Nature so abundantly provides in this season, particularly and in the sanctuary. You know, the seasons are a really huge way in which, hello Cat, we might hear a little meow. Our household cat, Zelda, just climbed into my lap.
The seasons really architect the template of our journey in the sanctuary, which is a place to nurture the sanctuary of presence within yourself, within your home, and within your rituals and within your life. And one of the ways that we create that sense of sanctuary within ourselves is through carefully curating and aligning our homes with the pleasure of the seasons. And so we know that spring cleaning is. Named after this season for reason because as the crocus and daffodil begin to emerge from the earth inside of us is this new stirring of energy emerging and providing motivation to declutter, to streamline, to polish, to refresh. And I actually have an entire episode around the art of divine decluttering, where decluttering is not just about this outcome of our belongings, but it's more about creating a divine place for your spirit to dwell in spacious, flowing corners of your home. And I'll pop a link to that episode in the show notes. And so a divine declutter is one way to work in harmony with Sister Spring. Another way to make your home an oasis of spring is to refresh your bed linens. So perhaps you take the bed linens you already have, and you do a deep soak in baking soda or some other delicious, earth friendly and skin friendly cleaner that will brighten them and deodorant them and just give them a little bit of a day at the spa. You might throw some essential oils onto a dryer sheet and fluff your sheets up. You might make yourself a pillow spray with a bit of witch hazel and essential oils that are native to spring, such as rosemary and peppermint and lavender and lemon. You might want to update your bedding altogether. I in the winter love to use flannel sheets and then once it gets warm enough, I'll switch to a bamboo or sateen. My absolute favorite brand of sheets. And I'm not an ambassador or an affiliate. I'm just a believer in this brand is called Kukai, and I'll pop a link into the show notes for that as well. There's a small company here in Northern California, and their commitment to the planet and to the quality of their products is just next level, and so cannot recommend that company enough. And finally. You know, all of these things are beautiful and wonderful things that you can do. But if you're like every other person I know, your to do list is already very full to begin with.
And so in our gems, you know, in addition to tips and tricks and suggestions and ideas, I always find it's really important to remind ourselves that presence isn't a state of doing. It is a state of being. And particularly this kind of presence that we're talking about, which is what I like to call saturated presence. So I'm a big practice of mindfulness, and I love seated meditation when I can find my way through the thorns of resistance to it. And I do it quite frequently. And actually, I've been really increasing my practice of it lately. And one of my teachers, Susan Pifer, talks about it. As you know, meditation is not about relaxing necessarily, or learning how to quiet your mind, though those might be lovely side effects. It's about learning how to be with and relate with the mind and turn towards the mind, rather than constantly trying to control it or be controlled by it. And so that's just a little plug for the beauty of seated mindfulness, and particularly for those of us with feminine nervous systems, our systems may not thrive or be nourished by nourished. I am not going to edit that out. Nourished by a more angular practice that often comes from a lineage designed for and by masculine archetypes. And so for me, a really delicious mindfulness practice that I've been doing lately is watercolor. Oh my goddess! Around the holidays I took my friend Susie Banks bomb. Amazing art. Playpen. I don't even want to call it a course, although there is an instructional element to it. Just this creative treasure box called Advent Dark Journal, and you absolutely must subscribe to Susie's newsletter. We have an episode with her as well, called From Marigolds to Holy Knowing. It's a must listen, and Susie does all sorts of incredible art experiences to nurture bringing out in. These are her words, bringing out and relating with your holy knowing through daily creative practice and Advent Dark Journal got me into a rhythm of creative practice every day, and I wanted to expand that into watercolors. And so I got myself a book called Everyday Watercolor by Jenna Raney. I Pinterest like my pants are on fire with little tiny watercolor videos. I watch YouTube videos and my god, it's so fun to have a hobby. I even have dreams of creating greeting cards and selling my artwork on my website, and it's just been the most delicious surprise to fall in love with a creative medium that I always thought.
You know, being a writer and a speaker and a teacher, that the realm of words was really. How I expressed my artistic nature and to have the medium of color and water and pigment moving across the page in a pool of water. And I mean, the other day, between two days, I water colored for seven hours. I just love it so much. And what's amazing about it is that just like I was talking about earlier, these habitual ways in which our nervous system has been trained to orient to busyness and to the dopamine release of working and producing as a formula for satisfaction, introducing a hobby that also generates this really beautiful sense of, I would almost call it mindlessness, where I get a break from my thoughts as I plunge my senses into the beauty of magenta and shallow turquoise and ultramarine blue and sap green. And so this gem is simply a vote and a nudge of encouragement towards allowing this fresh energy of springtime to guide you into wherever those buds of possibility and passion and delight are starting to emerge for you. As you consider ways to fill your time and spend your time that rewire that habit of filling our time with work. And that might be work of your job. It might be work of self-help. It might be work of. You know, trying to create the perfect home. It really doesn't matter what it is to me, it's about how we're approaching it. And so even with decluttering and spring cleaning, it's like I can approach it from the perspective of feeling that organic energy in my body and bringing in my essential oils and pumping my clean the House playlist.
Or I might find that I have some spare time and I'm like, I should organize the refrigerator. And, you know, then it's like I stay in the cannibalistic tail chasing of my thoughts. And I know you come to this podcast for inspiration and encouragement on how the senses and these simple pleasures, these elemental pleasures of sound through music and aroma and the beauty of a coffee table book dusted off with a candle on top of it. Can drop you into that quality of presence that glows with radiance. And so may these gems be like seeds dropped into the soil of your consciousness to bring new blossoms of beauty and presence and possibility into your life. Thank you so much for listening. Happy spring, and if you need me, I'll be at my watercolor table and I will see you in our next episode. If you're craving more of this kind of slowness in your daily life, I invite you to come unwrap a bonbon of a practice, a guided audio to lead you back home whenever your thoughts are spinning. Your shoulders are tensing, or you just need to reconnect to the compass within yourself. It's called five minutes of velvet and it's waiting for you in the show notes or at marylofgren.com