Spring is Movement

Spring is the release of stored energy into action. It is the moment when living systems begin to move again.

Across plants, animals, and bodies, spring is a reawakening. Flushes of sage, kelly green, and emerald rise across field and forest. Creatures big and small emerge from winter’s slower pace. Chicks stir beneath pale blue shells as roots begin reaching deeper into the ground. We step outside more often. We fill our lungs more deeply. Something in us wants to move.

The word spring comes from the Old English springan: to leap, to burst forth, to arise suddenly, to begin moving. The word itself carries energy. It suggests tension held for a time, then released. Readiness catalyzed by light. A force moving outward, upward, and through.

What do plants do in spring?

Across the grasslands, perennial plants begin to grow again after winter dormancy. As days lengthen and light increases, hormones in plants respond to shifts in temperature and day length that help activate growth pathways. Spring is not just warmth returning. It is a coordinated change in signal, chemistry, and pace.

It often begins belowground. As soil temperatures rise, roots resume active uptake of water and nutrients. Soil microbes become more active. Stored carbohydrates from the previous growing season help fuel early growth before leaves are fully unfurled and photosynthesis is running at full speed.

As soils warm and moisture returns, fungal networks become more active as well, helping move nutrients through the soil and toward plant roots in exchange for sugars. Leaves emerge. Stems lengthen. Roots expand. Microbes multiply. What looks still on the surface is, underneath, a surge of exchange.

In grasslands especially, deep root systems help fuel rapid spring growth. Some prairie plants reach many feet into the ground, storing energy below the surface and drawing life upward when conditions are right. 

Movement is everywhere. 

What do animals do in spring?

Animals spring forward.

Bears emerge from torpor. Birds build nests from moss, fur, roots, and sticks. Worms return to the upper layers of soil. In working grassland systems, cattle and bison shift from winter hay back to fresh forage. Each bite can stimulate regrowth. Each hoofstep presses plants and seeds into the ground, returning organic matter to the soil surface and helping restart the cycle of growth, grazing, decay, and renewal.

Chicks hatch into a world suddenly alive with insects. Deer lay in open pasture to absorb the first real warmth. Across the landscape, movement resumes. Patterned movement that shapes the land itself.

Spring on a grassland is not only something you see. It is something you hear in the symphony of bird calls, feel underfoot in the density of grasses, and smell in the flowers that begin to bloom. 

What do humans do in spring?

We move more, too.

We walk farther. We bend, carry, climb, and reach. Jump to catch the sight of eggs in a nest. We run just to feel the air on our skin. We lift children onto our backs for a hike. We step into the season and the season steps into us.

And in our bodies, the impact is felt. Bone responds to load. With each footfall and each small impact, the body receives a signal that it is needed. Bone remodels in response to positive stress. Muscle responds to tension by growing stronger. 

Our breath changes too. We breathe deeper in cool spring air. The diaphragm keeps its steady rhythm, drawing the outside world into us and moving us from the inside out. Breath regulates the nervous system, oxygenates tissues, and reminds us that life is always an exchange.

We are moved by spring, but we also answer it.

Spring is movement, it is a return to life, it is the impact of a footfall on a landscape and the landscape on our bodies. It is reciprocal – root gives to soil, soil to root. Hoof gives to seed, plant gives back to animal. It is the beginning of the cycle once more.