The Spring

There is no sport more physically draining than wrestling, but there is also no sport that comes close to being as physically rewarding. Yet apart from the joy of competition and the exhileration that accompanies the feeling of pushing oneself to the limit, the sport is one that sucks time and energy away from every other aspect of one's life. During the intense wrestling months (november through february)my body is so consumed by the sport that my mind has little energy for anything else. This is, of course, in no way Ideal. I feel trapped, and intellectually starved. I often feel confused, and often unbalanced. I feel off-centered, and often unable to read or write anything sensible.

Yet this all changes with the coming of the spring. It's like the same life that begins to bud in the trees explode forth in an array of different color greens also occurs in me. The coming of the spring beckons the end of wrestling season, and the promise of greener, brighter, longer days. It is the promise of time, and energy. It is the promise of Freedom. Ok, wrestling season is over, now real life begins.
I can read the Books that I have been waiting to read, I can now read. The words I have wanted to write, I can now write. The days I have wanted to fast, I can now fast. And not fast to drop weight, but fast to "cast off every yoke" and to draw near to God. My life has been returned to me.

Awakening

O dreams, my dreams,
Where is your sweetness?
Where are you,
Joy of nightly fleetness?
They’re gone away –
My fancies, gay,
And now alone
In darkness grown
I, sleepless, stay.

A mute night hovers
My bed above
In a flash lone
Turned cool and gone
Dreams of my love,
Like a tense crowd.
But still heart beats
The longings’ sound
And catches bits
Of dreams around.

Love, hear my plea,
Hark to my prayer:
Send back to me
Your visions, fair,
And by morn sky,
Again enchanted,
Let . . . Let me die
Still unawaken’d.

By Alexander Pushkin