The Energy of Emergence

Apr 5

ENGAGING IN THE OPPORTUNITY OF SPRING

Let us vow to bear witness to the wholeness of life,
realizing the completeness of each and every thing.
**Wendy Egyoku Nakao**

This post is in celebration of spring and the many ceremonial expressions humans have created since the beginning of time to mark this extraordinary moment of rebirth and sustaining life. There are 3 practices at the end for supporting what is emerging in your life.

Story

Welcome to spring.

This season fascinates me the most. It begins with a slow, quiet shift—out of the heaviness of winter and into something a little more open, a little more alive. Barely perceptible hints of green and red at the tips of tree limbs. A bit more light on the evening walk. A small return of energy. The sense that something is beginning to move again, even if you’re not fully sure what that is yet.

And then, the drama begins.

Rapidly billowing clouds revealing patches of bright sky blue behind dark, impending storms. Days that begin at 35 degrees and end at 80. A calm dewy, crisp sunlit morning, breaking into wind warnings, as Mother Nature clears old debris from trees. And suddenly, you begin to see everything rising up from the ground.

Spring is the season of rebirth. For thousands of years, cultures across the world have marked this time with stories of resurrection and renewal. The sun’s return carried the promise of new crops, sustained life, and another chance to begin again. Agrarian cultures told these stories not just to explain the world, but to bring hope and reverence to the process of life itself.

One of my favorites comes from Greek mythology: Persephone, the goddess of spring, who descends into the underworld and learns to live alongside death—only to return and lead the emergence of new life. Her story holds both realities at once: that life and death are not opposites, but part of the same cycle.

And I think that’s part of why I’m drawn to her story. I’ve always wanted to understand the wholeness of the result…the author’s life that created the story, the process that created the product, the seed that created the tree, the system that created the construct, the childhood that led to the adult….I want to know the whole unfolding and the relationships between things.

Because emergence doesn’t come out of nowhere. It rises from something.

From a season where many of us have been sitting with heaviness—personally, collectively—trying to make sense of what feels uncertain or fractured. I’ve noticed, even in myself, a kind of fatigue around the word hope. Not because hope itself is empty, but because of how easily it can become a placeholder. Something we say in place of something we do.

“Have hope” can sometimes drift into a quiet kind of resignation—like stepping back, waiting, hoping someone or something else will fix what feels broken. And underneath that, something more dangerous can take hold: a subtle disconnection from our own agency, our own participation in shaping what comes next.

Passive hope has never felt true to me.

We are wired for actively developing and consciously participating in our healing and growth.

To reach for the sun just as much as we root into the Earth. Even now, beneath the surface, life is always reorganizing—breaking down, rebuilding, moving toward something new.

So I’ve been holding hope a little differently. Not as something passive, but as an energy—something that fuels vision, movement, participation. A shared current between us that can actually generate change.

A few weeks ago, around the Spring Equinox, I had a moment where I was convinced my peonies weren’t coming back this year.

I caught myself wandering into anxious little rabbit holes…
Maybe they take a year off.
Maybe they’re diseased.
Did my husband accidentally kill them?

I’d pause, breathe, and gently bring myself back— not just to what was in front of me,
but to what I knew I had already done. The soil had been tended to, and they had what they needed. This part was not mine to force.

And then one morning, I walked outside and saw it—the first small, asparagus-looking maroon tip pushing up through the dark mulch.

There it was. Not fully formed. Not certain. But undeniably emerging. A reminder of slowing down and noticing that what is emerging in us can have its own rhythm, its own timed entrance to our lives.

I felt my body and mind soften into a peaceful gratitude. That felt like a more honest version of hope. Not something we declare, or wait around for—but something we participate in.

We prepare the ground.
We tend what’s ours to tend.
We stay present enough to notice what begins to emerge.

And then…we choose how to meet it.

Spring is a season of emergence. Not forced, not rushed—but unfolding in its own timing. A reminder that growth is happening, often beneath the surface, long before we can fully see it.

Many of our traditions reflect this. Easter, a celebration of renewed life and hope, takes its name from Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon goddess associated with fertility and the rising of life. In Germanic traditions, Ostara marks a return to balance, symbolized by eggs and rabbits—both ancient representations of new life. Passover honors the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in ancient Egypt—a movement from constraint into possibility.

I’m writing this on Christian Easter. In 325 AD, early Christians set their celebration of resurrection within this same seasonal rhythm. At the center of the Christian tradition is Jesus—a teacher whose life modeled a radical, expansive love. Not only for those closest to us, but across difference and division. His message points toward a kind of new life sustained by connection to something larger—a unifying source of love that nourishes, restores, and calls us toward one another. And that story isn’t just about him. There are many women in the process who tend, witness, support, teach, and heal alongside him, primarily Mary Magdalene, who didn’t wait around. She went to the tomb, engaging in the emergence.

Across cultures and mythologies around the world, scholars have identified recurring patterns—stories of descent, death, and return, where something disappears and then re-emerges in a new form. I searched the internet for examples and found too many to write about. (Soooo interesting, and I highly recommend searching.) As I write this, I’m remembering when I was young, curled up on the couch, engrossed in Joseph Campbell sharing stories of mythology.

These stories—different in origin, but shared in essence—are all tied to the lunisolar cycle, often celebrated around the first full moon after the spring equinox. A way of honoring that emergence doesn’t happen all at once, but builds, gathers, and finally arrives. There is a process to big transformation.

And maybe this is the invitation of spring—a place to gently begin our mindfulness practice.

To notice what is shifting—however subtly.
To honor the small returns of energy, interest, or curiosity.
To trust that not everything needs to be clear or fully formed in order to be real.

There are likely parts of your life that are still in winter. Parts that feel uncertain, dormant, or unresolved. And at the same time, something else may be stirring—an idea, a desire, a new way of being that hasn’t quite taken shape yet.

Spring doesn’t rush this process. It allows for both.

And this year, it feels like we’re seeing that emergence not just internally, but around us. Across the country, people are stepping out—millions gathering for a recent day of protest. And alongside that, countless images and shared experiences of something more than resistance—moments that felt positive, joyful. A celebration of life, of voice, of participating in the ongoing story of this country—its beginnings, its constitution, its possibility.

Closer to home, it’s here too. The return of farmers’ markets. Outdoor gatherings. My LinkedIn feed filled with people launching new initiatives, naming new ideas, stepping into something that feels aligned. There’s an energy of outward expression right now—of connection, of movement, of possibility.

I felt it in a simple way with my own family—spending the day hiking in one of our favorite forests, noticing what had quietly come back to life. Later, we went to see The Hail Mary Project, a story of a humble, everyday hero—someone whose sacrifice is ultimately fueled and transformed through friendship. A kind of rebirth, not through force, but through connection and love.

It all feels connected somehow.

So perhaps the practice is simple:
to stay close to what feels alive,
to tend to it with care,

to not shy away from our full, courageous, engaged hearts,
and to give it just enough space to emerge in its own time.

As you notice what is emerging within you, know that you are in the good company of the ancestors—woven into the great human stories of love, purpose, sacrifice, despair, patience, perseverance, learning - then transformation. Across time, we see this pattern again and again: an old system is outgrown, it breaks down, something is lost, and something new begins to emerge.

There is often devastating loss we grieve from these moments in history. And I will echo what so many have said - to please engage and educate, let us learn from the past so we do not have to replicate the results of pain. And let us create from a deeper frequency of love and belonging. I see these photos coming in from the Artemis II, and my heart swells with perspective.

Let’s engage in this spring’s emergence, engage in a hope that is not what we simply declare, but that which is forged through experience—something that fuels ingenuity, invites growth, and helps us build new ways of being that ultimately open us to our interconnectedness.

We are in the lesson of being human, as Ram Dass said, “take the curriculum.” In this season we have the plants of the Earth as our teachers, showing us how to move from seed in the dark nourishing ground to pushing up and out into the light.

And we’re in this emergence together.

So grateful to be building a mindful life with you. Please enjoy the three spring practices below.

May you be well.