Auspicious April and Its Beautiful Beginnings

April is an auspicious month, filled with many beautiful beginnings. Arriving shortly after the Spring equinox in the northern hemisphere, it foretells months of more daylight than darkness, warmer temperatures, and the summer to come.   

A unique quality of light graces Whidbey Island, where I live. Silvery and slanted, it gently kisses the surface of the Salish Sea, and on a clear day it quietly illuminates the snowfields still crowning the Olympic and the Cascade mountains in a way that makes them look both permanent and impossibly fragile. This is not the pale light of January and February, that merely hints at the sun's existence. And it is not the lavish light of July and August, that brazenly declares its presence. April's light is something in between: soft, tentative, and perhaps a little inquisitive about what it might reveal.

Here, April arrives as a curiosity of questions. Will it rain today? Almost certainly yes. Will the sun burn through by afternoon? Perhaps. Will it be windy? Maybe. When will the rhododendron blooms peak? There only certainty is that there is no certainty – just as there is no certainty in life itself: Everything is impermanent and subject to change. April resists reliability and predictability. Instead, it insists on aliveness, transformation, and openness to whatever is to come.

Walking in the woods in early April and you may hear the returning migratory birds before you see them. The varied thrush, the orange-banded mystic that dwells in  dense, dripping coniferous forests and sings a single, long note that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. The Wilson’s Warbler, with its simple, sweet song – a string of similar notes that ring loud and clear through the Spring air. The occasional high-pitched trilling of the Orange-Crowned Warbler.

Meanwhile, in the saltwater, the grey whales are heading north again. Bound for their feeding grounds in the Bering Sea after overwintering in the warm lagoons of Baja, they swim smoothly and sleekly through the Saratoga Passage that separates Camano Island from Whidbey Island. Some of these magnificent beings delight whale watchers with their acrobatic antics – spyhopping, breaching, and lob-tailing, to say nothing of their sonorous spouts - plumes of mist that can reach up to 15 feet into the air. And some take a break to feed in shallow water - their enormous bodies rolling sideways so they can filter small invertebrates from the soupy sediment close to the shore.  

Also in the tidelands, the eelgrass meadows are quickening. These underwater meadows, which retreat and thin out in the colder months, are sending up new shoots, greening the ocean floor and creating precious habitat for many species. Offering a safe nursery for young salmon and Dungeness crab, they also provide food for migrating waterbirds, help to prevent shoreline erosion and improve water quality. Without the eelgrass, the ecosystem of the Salish Sea would weaken. But here, quietly, without announcement, the eelgrass is beginning again. Doing what it has always done, simply because the temperature of the water and the length of the day have reached the threshold that says “Now!”

Back on land, the forests are undergoing their own resurrection. The big-leaf maples are leafing out in neon green, so electric it can seem almost artificial - as if they cannot quite contain their enthusiasm for life. Underneath the trees, shy trillium flowers offer a blessing to everyone who notices them. With three white delicately positioned petals held up above three leaves, they are said to symbolize beauty and purity. Trilliums take seven years to bloom from seed and they do not like to be picked — a plucked trillium may not flower again for years.

North of Whidbey Island in the Skagit Valley lowlands, April brings a dazzling display of captivatingly colorful tulips. Fields of white, red, pink, yellow, purple, and orange blooms stand out against the bare, brown earth of the fields. But look more closely and you will see that the fields attract not only carloads of sightseers but also countless purposeful pollinators. From dawn to dusk, and especially on sunny days, the first bumblebee queens of the season are working the flowers. These queens have been hibernating underground since the Fall, carrying in their bodies all the genetic information needed to build new colonies from scratch. Emerging in early Spring, they are ravenous and eager for construction to commence. They do not wait for the heat of Summer. They simply begin again.

As colorful as the tulips, in April rainbows often appear over the water — sometimes two at once, the inner one bright, the outer one dim and reversed. Traditionally viewed as bridges between heaven and earth, they can be seen as connecting the everyday world with the unseen world of the divine. No-nonsense scientists offer a different interpretation. For them, rainbows occur when sunlight is refracted and reflected by droplets of water in the atmosphere. April invites us to hold both views at the same time. The numinous, spiritual meaning and the luminous facts not negating each other, but merely different ways of looking at this brief and brilliant miracle of nature. 

And what does April ask of us human beings? It asks us to trust all the beginnings we bear witness to. To be aware of the skunk cabbage flaring gold in the wetlands, the first nettle shoots pushing through the forest floor, the return of the tree swallows - chattering and acrobatic, making homes for themselves in nest boxes, fence posts or old woodpecker holes. It asks us to remember that like nature, we can always begin again. Standing at the threshold between winter and summer, between what was and what is will be, we can begin again, just as the returning migratory birds begin again, just as the eelgrass begins again, and just as the trillium has been beginning for seven years already, without any certainty of outcome. It asks us to turn towards the light and the warmth, to trust what is emerging through us, and to start over.

April in western Washington is a month full of beginnings. Sometimes they seem tentative, tenuous, and timid, but whatever is being born is unmistakably alive. Unmistakably vibrant. Unmistakenly full of possibility. Nature does not apologize for her unpredictability – the unexpected snowfall, the blustery gales, the floods and landslides. Instead, she simply becomes herself. Fearless and faithful, she fulfills her inherent potential. And if we pay attention, she will teach us the oldest lesson there is: That the darkness always retreats and the light always returns, so we too can begin again.
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Events

All times are Pacific Time

Tuesday, April 7 4:00 - 5:15 pm In Person
Healing Circles Langley
Mindfulness Meditation & More

Tuesday, April 21 4:00 - 5:15 pm In Person - **CANCELLED - RESCHEDULED TO APRIL 28**
Healing Circles Langley
Mindfulness Meditation & More

Tuesday, April 28 4:00 - 5:15 pm In Person
Healing Circles Langley
Mindfulness Meditation & More

Sunday, May 10 10:00 - 11:15 am In Person and on Zoom
Unity of Whidbey
Topic: Reflections on Mothers' Day

Thursday, September 17 7:00 - 8:45 pm In Person and on Zoom
Wise Spirit Buddhist Community Portland, OR
Topic: TBA

Saturday, September 19 9:00 am - 4:00 pm on Zoom and In Person
Portland Insight Meditation Community
Daylong Retreat: The Brahmaviharas and Anatta: Contradiction or Complement?

Friday, November 6 - Thursday, November 12 In Person
Cloud Mountain Retreat Center, WA
Residential retreat (six nights)
Expanding Perception and ReMembering Who We Are...Slowing Down-Sensing-Responding
Co-taught with Ayya Santacitta
More info and registration
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