There is a hard truth to be told: before spring becomes beautiful, it is plug ugly, nothing but mud and muck. I have walked in the early spring through fields that will suck your boots off, a world so wet and woeful it makes you yearn for the return of ice. But in that muddy mess, the conditions for rebirth are being created.

~ Parker Palmer

Sunrise, Old Man’s Cave Gorge, Hocking Hills State Park, OH – photo by Larry Knupp, bigstockphoto.com