Happy Resilience Day! Spring Bounces Back

The March 20th vernal equinox heralds Spring in the Northern hemisphere   We deem this Resilience Day. What better time to celebrate the Science of Bouncing Back?  Bulbs pushing up through snow.  Buds sprout on seemingly dead limbs.  Winter yields to green promise.

Nature's resilience renders human resilience puny by comparison.  Even amid horrific natural and man made calamity, nature bounces back.  25 years ago a nuclear accident rendered Chernobyl  poisoned, uninhabitable. Yet Sergei Gaschak’s photographs inside 'the zone' today show thriving wildlife and greenery. 

An explosive volcano left Mt. Saint Helen a moonscape of ash and death This audio slide show just 30 years later reveals a revitalized mountain awash in green.  Time-lapsed NASA Landsat satellite footage shows nature's resilience. 

Ginkgo trees even survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan to flourish today: The plaque at Josei-ji temple 1420 meters from the blast. reads : This ginkgo withstood the atomic bombing on August 6th 1945. When the new hall was constructed in 1981, the tree was preserved by building the staircase around it.

And just how does nature bounce back? The same way we do: one step at a time. Did you ever watch a tree grow? One can't, not really. The actual progress is unobservable, infinitesimal, steady.It's growth can only be measured by time.  And so it is with us.  Each challenge overcome. Each exercise of willpower.  Every healthy choice. . Each positive thought or expression of gratitude makes us stronger. More flexible.  Resilient..  Able to endure our own winters, volcanoes and personal holocausts.   

Credit:Laura van Assendelft 

Happy First Day of Spring.  Happy Resilience Day. Cause it's not what happens to us. It's how we bounce back that counts.

Click on the Happy News link above for more stories of helpers, hope & innovation.

Browse the World Gratitude Map  for more  reasons to be glad.