Everything felt so hopeful this new year, and then the year of the fire horse charged in and stirred everything up. The past fortnight felt so challenging – people I love coming and going, family issues, back to back ambitious projects that were so fun and amazing and also exhausting.

It is a change of seasons,  in life and in the garden, with things coming and going – old things leaving and new things coming in to work with.

The earth and the plants and the animals are all so grateful for the beautiful warm weather. The land has sprung up, all green and fresh and beautiful, and the mornings are full of little birds singing their hearts out.

It always grips me, no matter how old and worn out and despairing I feel – the spring always wakes me up and soothes my heart with hope.

I am filled with fatalistic hope this spring, like Cuchulainn meeting the washer-at- the- Ford on his way to battle, washing the blood stains from the shirts of the men who will be slain. She holds up his shirt as he passes by,  all rent with terrible wounds, and still he goes on as he must with his warrior’s lion heart to meet his painful and glorious fate,  staring even the into the cruel eyes of the gods with no fear.

I don’t know when, if ever,  things will ever be easier or better in my life, but I am here, and the garden is here, and there are things to plant. So here I am, as usual, in the beautiful garden so intensely alive and green, just feeling it all and breathing it in.