One of the most amazing thing about living in our climate zone is the change of seasons. With the end of winter, come the spring blooms. Daffodils, tulips, and crocuses poke through the frozen ground and begin their arduous journey towards the sun.

As the temperatures dip back into winter 40s, it’s hard not to be taken in by these bright plumes of color, yellows, whites, purples, and reds. They create such a startling contrast to the winter slumber, where color was drained from everything and the world looked brown and drab. 

Spring brings with it freshness and hope, brightness, and warmth. After the long winter hibernation, the nature is waking up, and so are we, getting ready to shed our winter coats, put away those hats and gloves, and get out there to enjoy the sunshine. 

The rebirth, nature’s annual renaissance. It hard to image these plants were under the ground all winter, their bulbs dormant under the snow but alive, ready to come up and bloom to life. 

Tulips are one of the biggest gifts of spring, early bloomers, they’re not afraid of the cold. Their colors and sizes are so varied, you could see thousands of tulip blooms and still be surprised by the variety and combinations of color. The mini beauties were planted by the children in the fall at my daughter’s public school, PS84, that has a garden and an environmental science program.

And now the kids see the fruits of their labor, the bulbs they planted in the fall are coming up as gorgeous blooms in the school garden. 

Crocuses appear magical, they’re one of the first flowers to bloom and seeing their brightness brings happiness and hope. These gorgeous pops of color after the long winter seems unreal, like they’ve been painted and enhanced. 

Daffodils are another spring gift. Their colors, white, yellow and red trimmed are so vibrant, it reminds me of sunshine. There’re many colors and varieties but for the most part, each flower has 6 pointy petals and a trumpet like middle that is sometimes rimmed in a different color, giving the flowers even more exotic and mysterious look. Also called Narcissus, the flower name is based on a Greek myth. Narcissus was a man that was sooo beautiful, he was in love with his own reflection and kept staring at his image reflected in the water for so long, that eventually he fell in and drowned. There’s a famous painting by Salvador Dali, one of the surrealist painters that experimented and pushed the artistic boundaries. The painting is called “Metamorphosis of Narcissus” and Dali painted it in 1937. It’s in the Tate Museum collection in London. The metamorphosis here is also the rebirth, from the stone figure of the perished, self-obsessed Narcissus to the hand holding the egg, which is the bulb from where the new life sprouts in the form of Narcissus flower:

Life overcomes death and the new spring begins with a gorgeous, blooming daffodil. After the long gloomy winter, nature’s metamorphosis has begun with these incredible blooms. The brightness of the colors, the vibrancy of the natural world are the first signs of spring, of the full and complete reawakening that is taken place and all the blooms that are yet to come.