On February 25 I took a photo of  the tulips I was forcing. This little pot of bulbs was clearly not developing at the same time. But even as the most advanced tulip began to decline, the others were just coming into bloom.

As I watched the decline of my tulips, the colors changing, the petals crinkling I was reminded of a practice at a meditation center I once read about. On the first day of a week of meditation a beautiful big bouquet of flowers was set out in the meditation space. Over the course of  the week the flowers in the bouquet began to decline and shrivel. By the end of the week, many of the flowers would be very dead indeed. The point was a visual example of the change that comes with every moment, every day, in the world and in each of us.

Change is coming rapidly here on the hill. After a few days of daytime temperatures in the 40s, and a night of rain there is still a lot of snow on the ground, but the road is muddy. Fog is  floating over the snow because the air  is so much warmer than the ground. In just the hour since I took this photo the air has warmed further and the fog is thicker. The air is soft and damp. We are on the cusp of spring. The sugar houses are beginning to boil sap into sweet syrup.  I wonder how bad mud season will be this year. The only thing I know is that it will not be like last year. Things are never exactly the same. Everything changes.