Today, in My Home, It Is Spring

Holi is not a festival I grew up celebrating.
And yet, the language of color has always stayed with me.

In Rag Basant, Guru Arjan Sahib says,

Aaj hamarai ghar basant. Today, in my home, it is spring.

Full sabad and meaning

That line has followed me for years.

Not because it describes a season,
but because it speaks of a turning.

Spring in the home.

Not outside in spectacle.
Not in the noise of celebration.
But within the quiet rooms of the heart.

I have worn many colors in my life.

Roles.
Titles.
Responsibilities that once felt indispensable.
Identities that seemed to define who I was.

At the time, they felt permanent.

Most of them were not.

Some colors faded slowly, almost without my noticing.
Some I laid down with relief.
Some were taken from my hands before I was ready.
For a while, I did not know who I was without them.
And some simply belonged to a season of life that has now passed.

For a time, those changes can feel like winter.

The sabad speaks of another kind of color, one that does not sit lightly on the surface.

The deep crimson of love for the One.

Not the color thrown into the air for a moment of celebration.

But the color that stains.

It settles quietly into the fabric of a life.

It changes how you stand in a room.
How you respond when misunderstood.
How you soften when the instinct is to defend.
How you loosen your grip when something you loved comes to an end.

Perhaps this is the Holi the Guru gestures toward.
Not one played with powders in the air,
but one lived through service, companionship, and love for the One.

It does not make life louder.

It makes it steadier.

There are winters no festival can soften.

But when remembrance deepens, when gratitude begins to live in the breath rather than the mind, something shifts.

The house warms.

Something within begins to root and grow, like a quiet tree planted deep in the heart-home.

Its blossoms are not possessions.
Its fruit is contentment.

Perhaps that is Basant.

Not seasonal.
Not cultural.

But relational.

And sometimes, without announcement, you realize:

Today, in this home, it is spring.