19 Apr 2026 2 min read

Spring love letter to begin - excerpt

Spring Love, Art by Xi Chloe Hua

Signs of Spring begin very early in this part of the world. Technically it is still winter according to the calendar, but plants and animals have their own schedule of elongated emergence into the season. I find myself highly attuned in my watching and listening during this time of year; my antennae are up, sensing for small yet significant changes in Spring’s arriving. The delicate pink tips on huckleberry’s bare green winter stems. The first magenta coloured salmonberry blossom, the sounds of Swainson’s thrush returning. Rhubarb poking up above the soil. The smell of cottonwood buds in the air. The medicine that stinging nettle brings. The changing quality of sunlight - less watery, more round – and holding some heat. The ocean turning from dark blue-black to lighter hues, full of plankton and herring spawn that activate a wild, cacophony of life each Spring. And on and on, we reawaken.

What is Spring inviting you to shift and change? What is coming to life around and within you - greening up, blooming, and singing?

In visiting ?iyuls (Cliff Gilker Park) the other day, I noticed - as I always do - what’s happening with a specific Douglas Fir growing in a small grove of older trees. This fir, for the 20+ years that I’ve known them, has had an open wound on their trunk that seeps sap. I often wonder why this wound has stayed open so long rather than healing over. Most days, in all seasons, I put my nose up close and take a deep inhale to see what I can smell. In early- to mid-Spring when the sap starts to flow again the smell is strong and gorgeous, and I often get so close that my nose gets sticky with it. Flowing tree life brought to the surface, made visible, shining and sparkling in the Spring light.

What is stuck inside you that the warming of Spring might soften and let flow? What risks might you need to take to become more open and vulnerable, and what release might this offer? What might move with this openness and be sensed by the world, providing nourishment, filling others with sap?

Spring is a highly embodied season and can be a big lift, energy-wise. We’re coming out of winter hibernation, living from our stored energy. Then we emerge, eyes blinking, stretching, our bodies stiff – into the brightness. Spring reminds us that we are solar powered creatures too, more indirectly than our plant kin, yet sensing how sunlight awakens us after the long dark. I love scenting for skunk cabbage and their dramatic, colourful arising from the mud. This year, and every year, skunk cabbage reminds me that even when you’ve been hiding out – invisible - in the cold, quiet, dark for many months, it is always possible to emerge again from the muck looking and smelling fabulous.

What needs to be encouraged to unfurl inside you? How can you bring some brightness, beauty, surprise, and perhaps a little stank into your days? How can we become more attuned and entangled with the aliveness that is all around and within us, even if it may sometimes be underground?

Cole, Lindsay (2026). Transforming the Public Sector from Within. University of Toronto Press.