Spring and the key to the unknown...

Spring is here!, originally uploaded by sprouseart.

Welcome glorious spring! That’s right folks – today is the first day of spring. I am a spring fanatic. And even though it’s relatively bleak and chilly this morning, I know that the weather will slowly begin getting warmer from this point on and stay that way at until at least mid to late October (I’m an autumn fan as well).

Hyper-hued flowers have begun blooming in my yard and the melodic chirping of seasonal birds has begun to break the silent, steely, cold sunrise of winter. I say bring it on! This is a time for rebirth and renewal and I happen to be very ready for it on several levels.

Now that I’ve made my obligatory statements about the glory that is spring, I must mention something that has haunted me a bit since yesterday morning. As I have mentioned in earlier posts from the last few days, the mother of a close friend of mine died last Sunday. The funeral service was yesterday morning which I attended with other mutual friends. It was a solemn (yet touching) service. It was especially highlighted by three short speeches given by close friends of the departed. One of the speeches was particularly compelling. Not necessarily because of the words which she spoke, that being the usual verbiage which accompanies such forlorn occasions, but because of a particular event that she had mentioned.

According to the speaker, the deceased woman told her about a dream that she had had a little over two weeks ago. In the dream, she said that her mother and father-in-law, both of whom are long dead, appeared to her. They offered her a key, which she accepted. According to the friend of the woman whose funeral I was now attending, the deceased told her that she “had a bad feeling about the dream.” And that “someone was going to die soon”. Synchronistically, it was she herself who would be dead two weeks later, and indeed, buried on the very last day of winter.

When I heard this little tale of foreboding, I felt a slight chill run up my spine. I’m sure many of the others in attendance did so as well judging from the palatable silence that permeated the huge chapel that can only be formed from the vacuum created when 100 people take a slight gasp of air into their lungs as the implications of such a dream momentarily flood every nook of even the darkest corners of their mind with a bright and inescapable white light.

It’s important to remember however that death, in one way or another, does indeed bring renewal. In fact, the traditional meaning of the death card in the tarot deck is “rebirth and renewal” contrary to hokey, low budget horror films and vapid sitcoms. So, perhaps in some odd way, the untimely death of this woman was possibly, at least, seasonally, timely in its own unique manner.

Well, with that being said, stand up; shake off the old detritus of yesterday and picture yourself being revitalized. And by the way, if you happen to have any nocturnal visitations any time soon from deceased loved ones offering you the key to their condo, you may want to make a polite refusal, slowly back away, and force yourself awake.