I titled this arrangement “Spring” in honor of the current season. everything around me is blossoming, full of creative energy. As you will see in the following excerpt from the book “Chinese Tonic Herbs”, by Ron Teegarden, it is very important to be creative at this time of the year. Here is the excerpt, followed by two questions answered by Sri Chinmoy:

“‘Wood’ represents the next phase of the cycle (after Winter). During this phase, energy that has been concentrated and stored suddenly explodes outward, initiating a new period of activity. Wood is a powerfully expansive energy imbued with the exhilaration of reborn activity. Spring is the season corresponding to the elemental energy called ‘Wood’ by the Chinese. The Earth shifting on its axis now receives enough warmth and cosmic energy from the sun for life to flourish, so the energy so carefully protected and stored throughout the Winter is discharged on the relatively safe gamble that a new life can succeed.

Anyone who has experienced a Spring and has felt “spring fever” knows the awesome power of this Yang energy state. Wood energy rises and expands and is virtually irresistible. Wood is New Yang. It is aggressive, vigorous energy which bursts from the depth of substance or mind in which energy has been concentrated and stored as the essence of a prior cycle, expanding, invigorating all in its field of influence, bringing forth life and creation.

It is the creative urge and the procreative drive. It is the “will to become”, the urge to grow and develop, to create our own existence. It is that which provokes us. We experience it as the urge to express, to manifest, to break bonds, to metamorphosize. We sense it as a reawakening. It is our will to open up, to expand.

So when Wood is abundant we develop, we create and procreate. When ‘Spring’ comes around, we too ‘spring’, just as do the birds and flowers. Wood is the energy of the sprout and of all green matter. sublimation of this powerful creative energy leads to feelings of frustration and the energy will eventually burst out as irritability,anger, jealousy, hatred and rage. When depleted there will be lethargy and depression. Free expression and satisfying creativity, in harmony with natural laws and guided by Shin, the Spirit of Universal compassion, is the natural means of nurturing and manifesting the elemental energy known as Wood.”

For further inspiration, I include here a poem by Sri Chinmoy, as well as two questions and answers:

“Winter does not last forever.
When spring arrives,
Winter fades away.
Even so, attacks by the negative forces
Cannot last forever.
They are eventually succeeded
By a new life-awakening.”
-Sri Chinmoy

Question: What is God’s favourite season?

Sri Chinmoy: “God’s favourite season is spring, when new hope,
new life and new creation dawn. What God always wants from Himself is
transcendence. This He can do only when He exercises new hope,
new life and new creation constantly.”

Question: How can I make my everyday actions an art?

Sri Chinmoy: “You have to feel that each hour in your life
is a page of your life-book, and that you are studying,
memorising and utilising the wisdom of that page in your life.
Every hour you have to feel that you have studied one particular page
of your life-book. When the wisdom of that page enters into you, immediately
there appears in you a form of creativity.
Creativity does not only mean writing poems or stories. No! Creativity can be
inside one’s heart: creativity can take place inside one’s body-consciousness.
Creativity means a kind of manifestation inside you.
When you study that particular page, the wisdom recorded there is spread
inside your being. That is called creativity. If you can feel
that every hour is a page in your life-book and that you are studying it,
then every action of yours will be an art.”

So, dear friends, I hope you enjoy this arrangement,
which I have tried to do in an intuitive fashion.
Happy Spring to all!

Kamalakanta Nieves
May 2007

Artist: Sri Chinmoy
Release year: 2007
Duration: 5:19
Acknowledgements: Sri Chinmoy
Format: Advanced Audio Coding
Image: Sharani Robins