All revolutions need a Spring. A season in which all that is alive under the surface finds its way out into the open. A season in which that what is dormantly present finds form and becomes visible, tangible, sensible. A season in which pioneers raise their heads and voices, risking the death of returning frost. A season of birth, flowering, buzz and pollination. All revolutions need a Spring, a season of metamorphosis of potential into material reality.

Two years ago I happened to live in Sweden, a country with a long, dark Winter. For months on end, the bay in front of our cottage had been frozen and covered with a thick layer of snow. The nights seemed never-ending, while the days were grey and passed in the wink of an eye. Our bodies were craving kanel-bulle to keep themselves warm, while our social life had gone into hibernation.

At the end of the dark season, a friend lent me the book Animate Earth in which Stephan Harding explains James Lovelock’s famous Gaia Theory; the planet as a living and self-regulating system. A day after I finished the book the sun was out. It took about half a minute to put my coat on, run outside and catch some rays. I headed off for a walk around the archipelago and after a while, sat down at the side of the bay. In the silence of the afternoon I could see the ice melting, in the clarity I could hear the drops become fluid and make their way through the white layers. Drip by drip fall into the sea beneath. Mesmerized by the process, I saw a hole forming in the ice, and for the first time in five months, the sun reflected on the waves of dark blue water. With a gasp of euforia I realised: We’re turning Spring!

The water, the air, the ducks, the squirrels, the trees, myself: We worden Lente!

Until two years ago, Spring was just another season. Today, Spring stands for being in it together. Sharing a state in the world, being involved in the dynamics of Life. For breaking through the frozen forms of Winter, and becoming fluid again; adaptive, flexible and incredibly persistent! For bringing a fresh generation of green into the world and using the natural wave of creation.

The world is hungry for Spring. Humanity is ready for Spring. Our dormant understanding of the unsustainability of our way of living is transforming into new ideas, new practices, new ways of doing, organising ourselves and valuing Life. Let us use this Spring to strengthen that web of life, bring the undercurrent to the surface, sow and cross-fertilize, and use the fertile grounds for growing a beautiful society. If we truly wish for a green economy, let’s go out and learn what it looks like. Sense the rhythms that can guide our patterns of consumption, smell the qualities of healthy air, hear the tweets instead of reading them, recognize the dynamic relationships of beings; in competition, cooperation, symbiosis, mutuality, creative destruction, and endless destructive creation.

See you out there!