Spring is hopeful, warm and expectant.  Our mind is like the March kite, flitting here and there around so many new ideas.  Which ideas should be brought to life?  Which ideas should be brought down from the clouds and planted in the gardens of our mind? Flowers are suddenly everywhere, enchanting us with their fragrance and beauty, and seducing our minds with thoughts of romance and love.  Our thoughts are playful and youthful.  Everything about spring says renewal … our minds blossom with hope after winter’s despair.  So many possibilities all around us, so much of life to live, as our minds make Pollyanna plans, perhaps irresponsibly, but forgivably so.  Days are too short; we retire at night bursting with creativity and plans, eagerly awakening the next day with new resolve and optimism.  Our minds constantly percolate with possibilities.  Like spring itself, our thoughts and ideas are hard to contain, and are bursting out all over.

Summer brings restful thoughts, after so much spring exuberance.  Our minds need some respite after several months of almost runaway unbridled enthusiasm.  A soothing calmness enters our thoughts, as summer settles into a rhythm of green days.  Summer ushers in time for extensive thought.  Long days of light give us proper time to hold each thought, turning each one around and contemplating them from all angles.  There is time to do so, no rush or pressure in our examination.  Our minds stretch out as the days, pleasantly comfortable in our ruminations and meditations.  As summer wears on, in what seems to be a paradox, the heat turns up, but our minds cool down.  Restfulness is a good thing, but in moderation as with everything else.  Summer ages … lethargy enters in, and we start to yearn for something to break the repetitive stillness which dulls our thoughts and senses.

Just in time, autumn steps in to rescue us.  The air is refreshing, a welcome change from summer’s oppression.  Colors are vibrant, and awaken the eyes after months of a sea of greens.  Autumn brings thoughts of change.  Again, our minds awake as they did in spring, with great enthusiasm.  But autumn plans differ from spring plans.  In spring, our thoughts are focused on newness and growth.  They are thoughts borne in enthusiastic immaturity.  In autumn, our thoughts are more honed, mindfully and quietly enthusiastic, determined and maturely purposeful.  Common sense reigns supreme as we know winter days are ahead.  This knowing affects the directions of our autumn thoughts, which paths they take.  Just as the animal population gathers and stores food in preparation, our minds collect and stockpile thoughts for later contemplation and consumption.  We may decide to organize those thoughts, in similar ways as the groupings of color we see on the trees around us.  As the winds turn blustery and chilly in the late autumn days, our thoughts take on a more somber tone, realizing there are dark days ahead.

Winter ushers in deep reflection and contemplation.  There is a time and place for this kind of thought throughout the year, but the arrival of winter creates a tenebrous mood in our thought processes.  Extended darkness gives us permission to consider the gloomier themes in life, the cold, the frightening and the bleak.  Extrospective thought turns to introspective thought.  Snowflakes inspire us to consider the subtly intricate matters, detailed and thoughtful analysis which may have escaped us in the other three seasons.  Outside, the air is sharp and bracing. Inside, we mind match the weather in acuity and strength of thought.  Fortuitous thought is the hallmark of winter days, contrasting spring’s flights of fancy, summer’s unending observations, and autumn’s organizational plans.

And so the cycle continues, season after season, year after year.

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.  ~Albert Einstein