Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

                                    —Lao Tzu

In April, spring’s first full month, all things seem possible again. Along with nature, we cast off winter’s layers and celebrate the season’s first hardy blooms—delighting in the sunny hues of daffodils and forsythia and the delicate grace of wildflowers fittingly known as spring beauties. As the natural world reawakens, so do we.

Buoyed by warmer days and longer periods of sunlight, we spend more time outside, whether in our gardens or on a hike through the woods. But how many of us stop to realize how wondrous spring is? A time of rebirth, rejuvenation, the continuation of a natural cycle that our ancestors, in simpler times, embraced more intimately—because their lives literally depended upon it. Do we take nature’s gifts and bounty for granted? Or do we cherish the earth and all it gives us? We have much to learn from nature, if we choose to.

Nature’s wisdom is the theme of this month’s issue: It’s also the title of Christine MacDonald’s feature on page 30, which speaks of the lessons we can learn —and healing we can find—if we but stop and listen to nature’s quiet yet powerful voice.

From Randy Kambic’s profile of Paul Stutzman’s discoveries on his treks through the wild, in “Healing Journeys,” on page 28, to “Strong Winds, Strong Roots: What Trees Teach Us About Life,” by Dennis Merritt Jones, on page 40, we find that nature’s abundant gifts, free to all, never stop giving. On a more cautionary note, in Avery Mack’s “Earth In Peril: Children Confront Climate Change,” on page 38, we learn that wisdom truly comes from the mouths of babes. But it’s also up to us to ensure the earth we leave to our children isn’t damaged beyond repair.

However you welcome spring, take some time to stop and smell the flowers—and consider buying some plants native to the Garden State, ones that will beckon birds and butterflies to your garden and continue nature’s wondrous cycle in your own backyard.

Cindy