Winds of Change

"I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be." ~Albert Einstein


It has been an unusually windy and dry spring. I've spent more time this year staking my irises, moving fledgling vegetable plants and flower pots around to the least breezy locations, all in an effort to protect them so they have the opportunity to grow and thrive for months to come.

It makes me wonder: when the winds of change come, do we perform the same dance for ourselves in the service of protection? Who's to say that facing the winds won't make us stronger? Or prepare us for some next step, some next challenge, some new version of who we will become?

I had a dream last night of strong winds -- not quite a tornado, but of winds strong enough to tear out bushes and small trees at their roots. In my dream, I watch roots pull out from the earth, witness the destruction inherent in change, but am not scared. Somehow, in my dream, I know that what is happening just is and I have no control over it. Somehow I know that when the winds move through, a new reality will be there waiting to welcome me to grow towards and adapt to. Such is the way of the natural world. Change just is.

Back in waking life, I realize I think I'm doing the plants -- and myself -- a favor in my protective actions against change. But what if the task at hand isn't heading change off at the pass, expecting that we know the outcome and avoiding it? What if, instead, we are being asked to surrender to the moment, to let go of what is and wonder with the giddiness of a child, what might be?

This Spring, what if we could set our attachments aside and let the winds of change bring us possibilities to grow and change that we might never have imagined? I, for one, am willing to give it a go.//

Flowering Consciousness

Allergies aside, I absolutely adore this time of year. On my morning walk yesterday, the apple blossoms were poised to burst open at any moment. A few overachievers had already flashed the deep blush of their inner petals, permeating the air with a scent that stopped me dead in my tracks, nose raised skyward to locate the source. What joy to be led by a sense other than seeing or hearing! Those senses -- the usual suspects -- that we grow almost bored with because our experience of the world is limited by their slim range of capabilities. We begin to expect, in the habitual way humans tend to find comfort, that this is the only way...the right way.

Since my last entry, it's been a month of purging -- spring cleaning like I've never known it. Moving all the furniture, having carpets cleaned, rearranging, painting, sorting through the accumulated gunk, getting rid of what no longer serves us, making space. It feels as though the fog of confinement that a winter in Minnesota inevitably brings has finally lifted. And with it has come the openness and willingness to allow, sometimes through different senses than I'm used to utilizing, what yearns to be expressed -- and how.

The past year-and-a-half of writing from the intention of publishing has taught me many things, not the least of which is that that is not my preferred M.O. I want to create for the pure act of expression, the way it wants to come, sharing what it wants to share, living in the moment rather than being driven by external expectations, pressure and definitions of success. For now, I'm letting writing be what it's always been for me -- something that comes in cycles, its natural ebb and flow, pulling me in at will and setting me free when it's done.

I've always felt this way about my creative endeavors but have never quite allowed it. Being present to the process of creativity, to the now, I can be open to catching the scent of apple blossoms on the breeze and willing to follow wherever it leads.//