Renewal

The Chinese New Year is popularly known as the Spring Festival in China - and other east Asian countries where this holiday is celebrated - as it marks the beginning of spring.

The short spell of death

Was but a dreamless sleep.

Wiped clean of the dust of

Yesterdays, purged of

Impurities within and without,

Life awakens, budding,

Breaking through rough bark

Up, up, toward the light.

Skin of plant, and that of man,

Breathes in the rays of the sun

Overjoyed. Like myriad tiny boats

We float on the sea of existence,

Transparent, pulsating with hope

For a new, true awakening. 

Author's Note

After the big spring cleaning running up to the beginning of the Lunar New Year, I have experienced a few days of illness, which in retrospect, was a sort of internal housecleaning. Now, that both the rain and the illness are over, I see signs of renewal everywhere around me, and I am grateful beyond description for the wisdom of nature and the great forces that guide it and us.

Reviews

[Fabian G. Franklin]

I enjoyed this one. I'm reminded of what a great theologian once said, "Our faith is like a ship and the world is like an ocean. If we allow our ship to fill up with ocean we will sink to the bottom of the sea and perish. But...if we never put our ship out upon the ocean, then, it becomes worthless, because, that is what ships are for."

[Lorry]

Well I do hope you are feeling better now and it is a good way of looking at it as internal housecleaning as your notes suggest.
The coincidence of it happening then would have started as the ultimate irony, but it just goes to show that the connection made was the correct way to improve heart, body and mind, even if you didn't get to enjoy the celebrations at the time.
Another coincidence is the line of cleaning the dust of yesterday's, which is very reminiscent of Scottish new year traditions where we open all the windows for the bells to let out the old air and let in the new. There is also an unwritten rule that you must let even enemies in on new year, as in the tradition of auld language syne. It is a time for forgiveness as well as renewal.