The Choir Before the Bloom
How winter prepares what spring reveals.
When I stepped outside this morning, the birds were louder than usual.
It’s February.
It’s cold.
It does not feel like spring.
And yet, there was a knowing in their song.
A knowing that defies the calendar.
A knowing rooted not in what is scheduled —
but in what is emerging.
The birds begin.
Then the weeds push through the soil — the very ground we thought we had cleared in the previous season.
Then the shoots from the rose bushes in the front yard.
Then the yellow blossoms from the neighboring tree.
Then the buds forming on the maple branches.
And before I know it, spring is in full bloom.
It feels sudden.
And at the same time gradual.
Fast.
And at the same time intentional.
Spring isn’t waiting to happen.
It has been happening the entire time.
My witnessing is what allows it to be seen.
There’s something sacred about watching emergence as it unfolds —
not rushing past what it will become,
not measuring it against what it used to be,
but gripping each moment as distinct.
Defined.
Worthy of wonder.
That’s the gift spring gives me.
And in truth, it’s the gift winter makes possible.
What felt dormant was never dead.
Energy was being stored.
Roots were deepening.
Preparation was underway.
Now that stored energy redirects.
Color breaks through ground.
Brilliance rises from beneath what looked barren.
And the birds — the choir — sing not as performance,
but as invitation.
A call to remember.
A call to return.
A call to witness.
Nature is a generous teacher.
It blooms and shares.
Pollinators carry what is given and multiply it.
The maple casts shade so what is beneath it can thrive.
It gives as it receives.
It does not beg to be validated.
It does not perform to prove its worth.
It simply is.
And it continues becoming —
whether we notice or not.
The organic gives life in a way the manufactured never has.
Manufactured things must be maintained.
They extract energy.
They reward productivity over presence.
They demand building and building and building —
until there is nothing left to give.
And when you are spent, the machine replaces you.
It grows only if you keep feeding it.
It never returns what it takes.
This is the tension I feel in this season.
The organic —
interdependent, intentional, reciprocal.
And the manufactured —
churning, mechanical, loud.
One calls me inward.
The other tempts me outward.
“If you produce more, you can have more.”
“If you have more, you can produce more.”
A circle that never ends.
Until I stop building.
Until I return to the cradle of creation.
As winter shifts toward spring, I know what is emerging from me.
I also know what is trying to recruit me.
The cost of building what extracts far outweighs anything it promises to give.
So I’ll ask you what I’m asking myself:
What is emerging in you right now?
And what have you built that has never returned what it asked of you?