April Showers bring May Flowers…

When I taught elementary school, I always recited “April Showers bring May Flowers”, just as I shared “If March comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb” – (and the opposite). These “sayings” were part of my life growing up and they often inspired an art lesson or two. Little groups of 7 and 8 year old children creating flowers out of tissue or paper muffin cups, or painting raindrops or decorating umbrellas. Lions with curled paper manes and fluffy, cotton ball sheep that reminded and enthralled us with the changing seasons. We always say that change is inevitable and it is but, it is also to be embraced and celebrated and represented in whatever joyful way you can.

I had said “April Showers bring May Flowers” so many times that I decided to look up the poem that it comes from . It turns out that it has many different versions, as well as songs that celebrate April Showers. In the book, Braiding Sweetgrass, a book of Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer says: “We spill over into the world and the world spills over ito us. We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and the exhale of our shared breath. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to turst that what we put into the universe will always come back.”

So, I work to create a beautiful garden and it gives back. Spring reminds us that everything wakes from its winter sleep. The perennials peek through and turn green and reach for the sky and I celebrate my effort to garden – even though I know, that so much is beyond my control.

Written by Pam