Crunchy steps under spiked boots on mud and ice. Slow drops on branch tips unable to decide if they were liquid or solid. Rain and 37 degrees making wet clothes from the rain and from the sweat. Raw wind as welcome relief from my body overheating, yet the air was fresh. The forest’s exhale was a gift. Despite the unpleasant conditions, the externals, the air brought me to the moment. The perfect moment when my sweaty body was refreshed. The misty raw air, hitting my face was wet and wild and alive, and I was free from that which was unpleasant.
May this year bring you the freedom to be wet and wild and alive and not be pulled out of that beautiful moment by externals.
When the warm winds blow melting ice and snow, removing winter for just a day, all that remains is the reflection of deep blue sky and leaves brown limp and soggy.
Even though it is painful beyond belief, the clarity you receive from a tough conversation is worth it because you have the opportunity to heal and move on.
“The lotus is the seat of great sages and saints, buddhas and bodhisatvas, all those who have refined their consciousness to a state where they can root themselves in life’s muddy soil and use its fertility as compost to blossom the soul.”- Sally Kempton
Moss and saplings cover and intrude under a canopy of blue light. Uncomfortable frustrating experiences creating a space of knowing, a kind of wisdom. Wisdom based on fear, making you mindless and almost superstitious.
The ugly wisdom.
The kind that compels you to park in the same area, sit in the same area and walk the same trails because they work, they are familiar. The burl, the reaction, that brings you to respond with a quick no so that you don’t say yes.
The ugly wisdom
Soon comes a gentle breeze expelling last nights rain off your leaves. Soon comes light and with it change.
“From her heart grows a tree” whose bark has peeled and chipped, now leaving exposed wood growing moss and green creatures fertile with new life to pass. She is solid below the surface, and confident the new chapter will take root.
Thank you Melanie. See her post here. I hope I did this right! 🙂
Large bloom of white, protecting and surrounding, standing out in the forest, deep dark and rich. Fragrant small buds like children holding the future of the species, fertile. Sweet, oh so sweet nectar abounds as the forest begins to awaken to long warm summer evenings of growth, swollen with life.
Sometimes we just need to know that we are protected. We need to know that our needs will be met. Once we realize that they always are, that this journey we call life is as it should be, then we can taste the sweet nectar. Then we can swell with life. Then we can live.
Spring brings light on moist air. Captured water like fangs from a monsters snarl. Once without support soft and formless, now crunchy mud, now frozen and safe.
Crunchy mud allows you to walk across an area that would otherwise cause you to sink. When you step you sink only slightly because the ice, the crunch supports you. It’s a dichotomy of soft and hard, of wallowing and traversing to overcome. The ice although hard and cold, supports and protects you from the hard sink, the wallow that would otherwise cause you to have to come home and scrape the muck off your boots.
In searching for your next step in life you sometimes have to go very deep, so deep that you sink and wallow and dive so far that you have a good chance of getting stuck. If you’re a person who tends to think more than feel you will struggle to find what you really love in life. How can you be happy if you don’t know what you love? How can you be radiant and fully express yourself if you don’t know love?
The trick is to the balance between feeling and thinking because the thinking is what grounds you. Cold hard facts that sometimes freeze you are the ice in the crunchy mud. Sometimes you can figure out the next step on your path and stay above the the dark mud because you can pull yourself out of it with the strength of your mind, the cold hard facts, the ice.
This is a time of new beginnings. A time to evaluate and create and to know that in spring all trails have sections of crunchy mud.
Moss growing as whiskers on aged bark. Green and gray and sometimes blue by the light of day. Joyful warmth the sun brings allowing them to curl and hang and sway in the spring breeze as the aged bark dries and renews from the winter’s shell.
When looking for love we try to find a kindred spirit. Not just someone who is attractive or stable but also someone we see ourselves in. You know, the most desirable parts. But also a person we know will be there when we need it most.
I never really thought much about my past relationships especially my childhood. It’s done and why the heck hold onto something I can’t change. I realize now that I have been holding onto a wound so deep and so buried (like 10 feet under ice and snow and not even remembering that it was once there deep) that it’s virtually not even a part of me, like maybe a whisker growing sort of under my chin and I have to have my reading glasses on, and tilt my head in a certain way as I lean into the light when looking at a magnified mirror. You get the point. That’s what I just saw. A whisker of abandonment from childhood that has caused me to think too much about what I should be instead of just being. Well, got my tweezers! That whisker is toast.
Shiela’s in the sun and gathering the light. The light of understanding that is nurturing the relationship. Harry is somewhat in the dark but hey, he’s a man. (sorry guys). Was is always like this? Wasn’t there a time when Harry was bright and strong or was it just what Shiela wanted to see in him? Was it because she was thinking too much, trying to quantify her heart because she had to make the best decision?
Snow holding long blue shadows from trees too numb to notice their bark hardened by experiences. They are grouped in families, standing alone or just now emerging but all share this moment as light fills one side and casts darkness onto another.
I’ve been stalking myself for about a year.
It all started when I asked the universe for someone that had the same expression of love as I do. When I asked I set into motion a journey that was quite surprising. Asking for someone like you would naturally mean that you know who you are. I didn’t expect to learn much about myself because, after all, I’m 60 years old and have had many experiences including some profound mystical ones. Really, what could I possibly not know about myself right?
Slowly the layers began to peel. As time passed, I saw glimpses of the real me, buried deep amongst layers of the mundane and I realized that in some ways I’ve been numb.
Deep, deep stuff came up. Even the stuff that I already worked on. Even the stuff that I thought was over, done. Jeez.
But I forged ahead keeping my head up and my outlook positive because I really want to step into the next chapter of my life, and I think I now have. I have, at least, acknowledged the shift in seasons and have embraced the new growth of spring and the melting of the snow, and the warmth of the sun that removes the numbness of my mind.
Spring will soon be here and I’m looking forward to my long blue shadow replaced with a golden light on pale green saplings and mud. And I’m most looking forward to the possibility of my mate, the one with the same expression, to come into my life.
Young branches heavy with snow, protected and nurtured, exposed just enough to feel the warmth of the sun. Community surrounding and encouraging them to grow, to reach, to become.
Winter’s chill, darkness of sleep and lazy shadows meandering through the forest bringing armor to the little ones.
My elders have long left this earth but I remember the community and when I see these young trees I too want to wrap them in snow and tuck them in for the night.
I want to protect them and keep them from making the same mistakes I made, embark well-meaning words of caution learned from life’s lessons. Don’t pay too much for a house, always save money, give when you have the chance. Always under bake chocolate chip cookies and keep plenty of sand on hand in the winter when the freezing rain washes the snow from your driveway and you are left with pure ice.
I will always be a mom, not just to my children and grand children but to everyone because I care. I will teach, and nurture, until my last breath is taken away and I leave this earth for good.
Grounded Wisdom 