28 Apr A Springtime Note from Muriel May 2022

A Springtime Note from Muriel Wolf,
BAH Spiritual Companion

Spring is the time of the Great Unfurling: of lilies’ fronds, of ruffled daffodil petals, of
birds’ wings and April showers, and the winds of change setting last year’s beech
leaves tremoring and falling to the ground to make way for new buds. Springtime is
testimony to resurgence and resilience, the urgings of the Life Force to move all of
nature, every being and creature, each and every living entity, ever forward in the great
cycle of birth, death, rebirth, death again….

During the passage of the seasons since last spring, the Covid pandemic has continued
to keep us ever adapting. We have masked and unmasked, and masked again. We
have expanded, through creativity and pushing the boundaries, into the ever-changing
scenery and demands of this challenging time. What we’ve been learning through all
this is that resilience, and the ability to adapt, are rooted in the same patch of ground:
the ground that favors acclimation over despair; the ground from which we build a net of
mutual care. We turn toward others in order to feel their presence, detect and respond
to their needs, benefit from their wisdom, seek solace for our own suffering. We offer
one another what we can, and in so doing, find absolute evidence that the whole is
greater than the sum of its parts.

Our BAH Community, the whole of all who comprise it, extends far and wide. Over the
course of our nearly five decades, many hundreds of families have joined our circle,

then moved beyond it; gifted staff members have come and gone. We have said
farewell to three of these dedicated, hardworking hearts recently, and the loss is great.
Nevertheless, the cycle continues ever onward–we will welcome new hearts, new
voices and ideas, new ways of being in this work we treasure. We are about to say
farewell to the years-long location of our beloved Experienced Goods, and move
onward to our exciting new digs. We continue to be held aloft by an ever-growing family
of donors, their great deeds of generosity and vision. We have hosted celebrations and
memorial services, achieved our goals through the dedication of hundreds of
volunteers, accompanied many scores of people on their grief journeys from deep dark
into newfound light.

And so, we at BAH continue to participate in, and help to regenerate, our own corner of
the Great Cycle of Life. We hope to do so through endless cycles of change, into
perpetuity. By participating fully in the Spirit of Community, we have been amazed by
what can be accomplished through the many cycles of birth, death, and never-ending
change.

In honor of this fertile season and all that it signifies, I offer you this poem (below) by Vermont
poet James Crews, a gift that can remind us of the beauty of reemergence following a
time of dark waiting; a time we thought we might not bear. And along with this poet’s
wisdom, I offer us all Warm Blessings for a spring season of joy, comfort and ease, and
New Life.

Consider the Lilies

This is the unbreaking news:
today on my walk I saw
hundreds of trout lilies 
breaking through leaf litter,
their spotted green leaves—
nearly translucent in the sun—
pointed upward like spears,
already turning the leftovers
of this last difficult year
into fertilizer, into food.
Consider these lilies, how
they’d never call themselves 
broken simply because they
had to live in darkness
and cold for months, how
they don’t have to be told
to reach for the dappled light
they know they need to bloom.
— James Crews

(Used with permission.)