🎶 🎤 ‘Spring starts to spring; the cuckoo starts to sing, and mother nature wears her newest gown’. 💃

Have you heard this song before? I sang it badly at the weekly concerts we’d put on for my parents. Anyway, I’ve been humming it for weeks. SPRING IS HERE.

So, it’s out with the old and in the with new.

That sounds flippant. I’m in that really annoying bumptious mood. I LOVE Spring. I LOVE all that is symbolises. Yes, I do. I mean who doesn’t love Spring?

There is so much symbolism around Spring. Spring is all about change, new beginnings, fresh starts, new life. The world is waking up, animals emerge from hibernation 🦔, birds return from their winter holidays 🐦, and we shake off the stagnation of winter and are overcome by an unmistakable and very different energy. Why else would you even contemplate the idea of ‘Spring Cleaning’.

Spring is crammed with hope and optimism encouraging and reassuring us that we change, that we can make changes, that change is accessible, available and achievable.

I know that not everyone likes change. But we all know that it’s inevitable. We can’t stop it and there’s no point resisting it unless you want to wallow in eternal misery and suffering. You can take your pick of famous quotes on the subject. I like this Benjamin Franklin one: ‘Nothing is certain except death and taxes’.

Obviously, no-one likes bad things that they can’t control happening to them. Things like death, illness, the deterioration of your memory, the giant hollow bags under your eyes no matter how well your slept etc etc etc. But what about planned change, new beginnings, taking a giant leap into the unknown – a leap of faith? I love that expression and the image it conjures for me. It describes exactly how I feel at this moment.

In my head, this is how I see it. I’m standing in a barren field after a massive shift in the tectonic plates beneath me. I have power crackling through my feet. Winter is the earth behind me. I can still sense it. It’s dark, cold and a bit sinister (think Narnia). Spring is in front. My launch into Spring is instinctive, the energy unstoppable. I spring into Spring with 100% commitment. It’s almost as if I’d been waiting impatiently all winter.

So, what’s this all go to do with Yoga you may be asking. Well, I hope you are asking that. ‘Cos I’m going to tell you.

Firstly, yoga teaches us to be present in the moment. Because I am learning to be present and aware of what’s happening in this moment, I am noticing things that I have never noticed before or have genuinely only started noticing since practicing yoga. It’s like having the winter duvet removed and being catapulted into a world of technicolour. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. I’m trying to resist writing cliches about being reborn but I’m afraid that’s actually how I feel.

Cliches are cliches for a reason. My husband Donald told me that in 1997 and I was appalled because I was embarrassed by cliches. Yet, another way in which I’ve changed #seenthelight. Now, I’m comforted by cliches, and I love gardening.

Being present is changing me in ways both large and small. The world, nature and the physical environment are slowly sharpening into focus in a way they never did before. Goodness knows how I managed to be so oblivious for my first half-century.

There’s a beautiful magnolia tree at the corner of Looms Lane in the centre of Bury St Edmunds, framed by the grey house behind it. I find reasons now to drive past it whenever I’m in town. I actively seek daffodil-strewn places and feel as if the colour of spring is like an injection, a direct line pumping my veins with joy, hope and energy.

I am ready to embrace change - and all the associated loss that will come with it. For to make room for change, we must also let things go. For example: when I was 21, I wanted to travel in Africa. I sold my book collection (my pride and joy) to help to fund my travels there. I never looked back. Sure, I missed the books. But Africa! I got to go to Africa. No contest.

Now, I want more yoga in my life.

So on Wednesday 12th April, after 17 years, I will teach my last Class at Moreton Hall Health Club. Moreton Hall has been a home and a family to me. My children were brought up in the creche there. It’s stuffed full of friendly faces. It’s the place where I taught my first fitness classes. It was even a place to have a shower when our boiler was broken. For me, Moreton Hall Health Club is full of memory and nostalgia.

And yet, to make room for the new, I have to let go of the old. Moreton Hall is my past. Yoga is my present.

Spring means new beginnings; it means making changes. The returning light and warmth help to fill us with hope. The emergence of nature’s colours encourages us to live, to get out, to shout, to laugh, to make connections, and even to take risks.

What joy, new or remembered, large or small, is this Spring bringing your way?