Spring still feels like a ways away at my home about 3 hours north of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The snow is still piled up outside, though there is less of it than in previous years. My icy driveway reduces my urge to go anywhere — nice though the thought is, the thought of spinning my tires on the ice while my car says “not going anywhere” increases my inertia.

So it still looks like winter still has me in its grip. And yet …

When I go out for a walk now, I hear the birds getting livelier. The sound of the melting snow and ice dripping down the side of the house catches my ear with a tonal palette of rhythms and textures (time to get out my audio recorder … there is good music there). And my mind wanders to the story ideas I’ve put on my internal bookshelf and thinks of new ones.

There aren’t a lot of ideas yet. Like the eavestroughs dripping, my ideas drip out slowly …. but constantly nonetheless, I have to remind myself.

As I wander around outside, carefully and slowly so I don’t slip on the ever-present and treacherous ice, I think of the seasons of my creativity. I tend to get anxious when ideas don’t come in a steady stream. Is this it? I ask myself all too frequently. Have the ideas stopped?

It takes a fair bit of presence and focused attention on my own thought process to remind myself that this is the way it has always been. Creativity and receptiveness have seasons, just like the earth does.

It doesn’t take much imagination to hear my tulips and daffodils gathering the energy in their bulbs to begin their slow launch of their first shoots. They’re getting ready.

And so am I. And I hope, so are you.