Dear Spirit to Spirit friend,
It's the time of year that those of us who experience a spectacular natural shake-up called "spring" begin exclaiming to each other in every conversation, every email, every text: "Isn't this day amazingly gorgeous?!", "Did you hear the peeps last night?!", "The daffies are up!".
But this year, this spring, we seem to be walking in different territory. One day, we are marveling at the bursting forth of new life in large and small ways. The next, we are bemoaning another cold wintry day. This seems to be a season of ups and downs, ins and outs, this way and that way. The steady progression of spring's emergence that we think of as spring is nowhere to be seen.
When we experience this in nature, we humans begin to feel the same way in ourselves. Everything feels changeable and changing. Everything seems chaotic and we cannot predict what we thought was predictable. We become unsettled when what we have counted on as constancy becomes inconsistent, uncertain.
If we look to nature and animals, how are they with changeability, with the surprising, the unexpected? The daffies seem to follow whatever the flow of nature is. Heads poke up a little to check out spring early on. Then, they wait to see when is the right moment to fully commit. The birds come north as the light and temperature change. And yet, notice how vocal and busy they are on the warmer days and subdued on colder one. The peepers, our tree frogs, sing loudly at the first warmth, and yet know to go back under if the temperature lowers.
What animals and nature are demonstrating is not just instinct but an inner guidance system that directs each one in adapting to change. Even though the outer may be wavering, the Core- the Stillness from which inner guidance emerges- does not waver. Animals seem to know this and live this. When the outer shifts in unexpected ways, they listen deeply to an inner GPS- to the deeper rhythm of energy, of life- and allow it to guide them. Then they simply know what they need to do. And they become available to whatever the next movement of energy/life is and whatever inner guidance illuminates for them.
Perhaps we can follow their example and relax into the steadiness of what is always constant, consistent- the Stillness within, our Essential nature. And allow that center to navigate and direct us through the inconsistencies and changeability that are always life. Perhaps we can find more ease of being in just this.
Once again, nature and animals will teach us. We just need to listen and follow their beautiful example.
In Gratitude & Love, Joanna