stevehartflorida.com

DOWN YONDER, FL – A toddler watched with wonder as her father crumpled acacia seed pods in his hand and tossed them into the evening sky.

She had never seen something suddenly so transformed and cast to the wind. It must be magic.

The silly Muscovy ducks saw the magic, too, and thinking the crushed seed pods food came running in their greediest waddle. They poked and pecked at the crushed pods, only to realize the frustrating truth that acacia pods are not their preferred supper.

“Mindless ducks,” said the toddler’s father. “You don’t see the mallards fightin’ over crushed seeds.”

The seed pods of acacia trees are food to the exotic Brazilian parakeets that found a home and started a colony nearby. They chatter incessantly as they dart from branch to branch, removing the seeds from the pods and feasting joyously.

It is one of the many rituals of spring in South Florida. People who think the season never changes here just aren’t payin’ attention.

The bright red bottlebrush blooms, the scent of gardenias and jasmine, the fiery orange of the Poinciana and butterflies transfigured from caterpillars are all part of South Florida spring.

The sun becomes suddenly much hotter as it crosses the Tropic of Cancer on its annual march north to bring spring to colder climates. The water warms from its wintry cold.

There are once again massive thunderheads that build over the peninsula’s interior. Fed by the Gulf of Mexico’s moisture and carried on the afternoon sea breeze, they build to the point of explosion and rain heavily on the swamps and savannas parched by winter’s drought.

In South Florida, like most regions, spring is the time of rebirth and renewal. Spring is magic just like the single seed pods crushed into many seeds.

Is it simply an accident of the calendar or is there something larger that leads all the world’s great religions to holy days in the spring? Easter and Passover are certainly linked by the calendar – and events – and Passover’s date is a matter of history. But spring is also the time when the world’s Muslims make their annual pilgrimage to their most important shrine in Mecca. Hindus hold their biggest festival in the spring.

Legend has it the branches of the acacia tree were fashioned into the crown of thorns worn by Christ on the cross. His death and resurrection are linked both in faith and mysticism to the rebirth of spring.

The English word, “spring,” means both a season and the bubbling up from the land of new, life-giving water. It comes from an old Indo-European words and means to “bring forth” new life and is linked to the word, “rising.”

The ancient North Americans, who lived here centuries before Europeans arrived, believed the world was created in the spring.

An island floating on water, they believed the earth was suspended from the sky by cords at each of the four cardinal points we now refer to on a compass.

The sun was brought by the animals who arrived on this new earth when it was still dark. Hung in the sky by conjurors, it was hung too low and was too hot. More conjurors were brought to move the sun until it was hanging seven handbreadths from the earth, just under the sky. At that place, they reasoned, its warmth was just right for spring flowers and plants.

They also believed there was another world under this one. The other world was exactly like this one except the seasons were opposite. The pathway to the other world was the rivers and streams that flowed from their mountains. They knew the seasons were different because the “springs” from which the water flowed were always colder in the summer and warm in the winter than the outside air.

Maybe to some eyes the seasons never change in South Florida. To eyes that are open the spring is yet one more reason to cherish this paradise.