Quotes from the Classics: May
We are in full swing, folks! The showers did in fact bring flowers and maybe some frenzy too. May showcases full-on evidence that we are alive - the bustle, the to and fro, the busy. There are coffee dates to be had, lighter clothes to pull out of storage, and plenty of weeds to pull and while I agree wholeheartedly with Wayne Dyer - “the difference between a flower and a weed is a judgment,” - I still spent three hours last week searching for lettuce and carrot sprouts.
We’re here, we’re alive, we’re excited AND we’re down on the ground, tending, sometimes taxed, and day-to-daying too. If you’re like me (the most introvertive extrovert any of you know), you couldn’t be more pleased about the sunshine and you might also be secretly dreading that dinner party or missing those quiet evenings of journaling and reflection. What a conundrum.
And, we’re off to the races! The showers did in fact bring flowers and maybe some frenzy too. May showcases full-on evidence that we are alive - the bustle, the to and fro, the busy. There are coffee dates to be had, lighter clothes to pull out of storage, and plenty of weeds to pull and while I agree wholeheartedly with Wayne Dyer - “the difference between a flower and a weed is a judgment,” - I still spent three hours last week searching for lettuce and carrot sprouts.
We’re here, we’re alive, we’re excited AND we’re down on the ground, tending, sometimes taxed, and day-to-daying too. If you’re like me (the most introvertive extrovert any of you know), you couldn’t be more pleased about the sunshine and you might also be secretly dreading that dinner party or missing those quiet evenings of journaling and reflection. What a conundrum.
No fear! We get to be both. We can be excited and expansive and abundant and also take care of ourselves. It just takes a little bit of adulting - not the 9-5 job adulting but the I-am-40-years-old-and-actually-this-is-my-life variety. We can be choicy and deliberate and work with this quickly rising May energy to do and make and be and grow whatever we want. We can listen to ourselves and be cognizant of when we need to take a break or move or drink some water. And we can leverage the dreaded NO.
I’ve heard this a million times before and still felt anxiety or the need to lie and make something up every time I was confronted with the need to say no. Of course, more self-Love was a game-changer and part of that journey included more focus on my yesses. My desires and wants are legit, gifted by the Universe, and really important to the thread of humanity. Sounds epic but I believe it now. If I hold my yesses that way, it leaves little room for stuff I don’t want to do. Think about it. “Guys, I can’t do the thing because I’m planning something cool for my new business! Or I’m doing this new meditation I found ! Or <insert other really fun, really exciting thing, requiring an exclamation point at the end of the sentence, HERE>!
It’s exponentially easier to say no when you’re excited about something else. So, what do you want? Who do you want to be? What do you want to create? Let’s be like the ants and get some stuff done, well, maybe with a little grasshopper fun too! Check out the quotes below that are certainly part of larger works but also capture May’s unique essence and energy, and also some things I would definitely say yes to. Enjoy!
Bee by Boris Smokrovic
“Come to the orchard in Spring. There is light and wine, and sweethearts in the pomegranate flowers.”
“To see a World in a grain of sand
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour. ”
“And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.”
“Earth laughs in flowers.”
“Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven’t time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”
“It’s a spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want to—oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”
“She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! ”
Love in all things,
April Eileen
Quotes from the Classics: April
It’s Spring at last! Yet April necessitates patience and patience, by definition, is hard. Otherwise it would just be waiting. April provides an even more tangible promise of euphoria, while simultaneously requiring us to sit a while longer in transition. Our expectations begin to get the better of us. The snow has given way - well, usually (I’m looking at you Ohio) - but to what? There are days of warmth and sunshine to be sure, but very often there is rain and even a blustery reminder of the winter past. I hurry to my community garden plot to water my plants and keep them from burning up in near 90 degree weather, only to hurry back two days later to cover them and protect them from possible frost. “Gah!,” I project in my being. “Just hurry up and get there…arrive already,” my essence seems to say. But there are gifts here, in this space and time of year, to ease the hearts of even the most impatient.
It’s Spring at last! Yet April necessitates patience and patience, by definition, is hard. Otherwise it would just be waiting. April provides an even more tangible promise of euphoria, while simultaneously requiring us to sit a while longer in transition. Our expectations begin to get the better of us. The snow has given way - well, usually (I’m looking at you Ohio) - but to what? There are days of warmth and sunshine to be sure, but very often there is rain and even a blustery reminder of the winter past. I hurry to my community garden plot to water my plants and keep them from burning up in near 90 degree weather, only to hurry back two days later to cover them and protect them from possible frost. “Gah!,” I project in my being. “Just hurry up and get there…arrive already,” my essence seems to say.
But there are gifts here, in this space and time of year, to ease the hearts of even the most impatient. The sprouts and blooms make me happy, as do the bright shades of green that seem to capture light and life, not yet having matured into deep forests or emeralds or sages. My youngest daughter gleefully celebrates every time a new baby plant boldly reaches toward the sun, displaying itself in its egg carton cup, bound soon enough for the community garden. The rain offers peace and calm and all of nature takes a breath before an inevitable explosion of color and excitement. It all seems to tell of what is to come, while bringing joy right now. Such is April. Be patient my friends. Honor February’s fallow ground, lean into March’s blustery winds, look forward to the May flowers, AND enjoy life now in its visible state of becoming.
Check out some of these classic quotes about renewal, freshness, beginnings, growth, and Love. By the way, April means not only “to open” but is also named for Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of Love. How fitting. Enjoy!
Sprouts by Markus Spiske
“Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby”
“Beauty made you love, and love made you beautiful.”
“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.”
“There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparell’d in celestial light
The glory and the freshness of a dream.”
“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.”
“With so many trees in the city, you could see the spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly in one morning. Sometimes, the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that it would never come… This was the only truly sad time in Paris because it was unnatural. You expected to be sad in the fall… When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason. In those days, though, the spring always came finally but it was frightening that it had nearly failed.”
“In time of silver rain
The butterflies lift silken wings
To catch a rainbow cry,
And trees put forth new leaves to sing
In joy beneath the sky
As down the roadway
Passing boys and girls
Go singing, too,
In time of silver rain
When spring
And life
Are new.”
“Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.”
Love in all things,
April Eileen
A Song of Self-Love
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” — Buddha
A priestess of Love and the Truth of spring rain,
of Beauty ever present and lasting.
A silver moon child, she waxes and wanes,
most alive in the black of night passing.
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
A priestess of Love and the Truth of spring rain,
of Beauty ever present and lasting.
A silver moon child, she waxes and wanes,
most alive in the black of night passing.
Woman free by Ashley Byrd
Yet she brings forth the sun, as she dreams in her bed,
of all she must gather for her pyre.
Her words are majestic, her passion blood red,
in her voice, a suggestion of fire.
With the dawn, a new day, let the old burn away,
she awakes with a purpose and plan.
Her heart, open wide, bringing flowers of May
as an offering to life once again.
A Love show and tell - sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell -
she crafts her creative display,
bringing stories untold to the beautiful souls,
sharing God in her colored array.
Fashioned as woman, and woman is she
with the copper-brown skin of ex-slaves.
Wielding Eve-strength of a certain variety
forged in wind and saltwater and waves.
A mother to daughters walking barefoot on Earth,
tiny-toed, and still feeling their lives.
The truth unveiled in the fury of birth,
in giggles, and the blinks of their eyes.
And when she’s alone in her quietude,
she listens and opens to Love,
The Light that gleams and glitters in all things,
The Infinite, nothing else above.
Oh, in awe of serendipitous happenstance,
and the tenderness of humanity,
and blooms, and stars, and the magic of bees,
and her native state, wild and free.
Love in all things,
April Eileen