2008...A Nature Year

2008 is descending gently upon us. I feel her hovering sweetly on the outskirts, patiently waiting her turn. As nature is....magical, rhythmic, patient, gentle...transformative, changing always and not fighting or resisting the cyclical births and deaths it brings.

I feel her magic. I feel the changes (or should I say the evolution) coming within me, ready to emerge. I have surely been in labor the last few months and at times the contractions have been so acutely painful I have shrunk back from this new life trying to be born. I'll still be 'me', but more fully alive....more in the moment. More gentle with myself. More in integrity with my truth. More still and quiet yet allowing the dancing and movement stirring inside me to have it's way...and I will let it.

2007 was a fire year...and in the end, it will burn up all that isn't necessary and for the best in our lives, but what an ashen, charred landscape it sometimes leaves in it's path.

Just as in nature; if a baby stays inside it's mother too long, not only will it die, but it eventually kills the mother. This child inside me is ready to come out and play and I can't hold her back any longer....the consequences are now too great and my body is showing signs of a prolonged gestation. It's now more painful to hold it in than to let it emerge. No more resistance; just surrender and with that surrender has come joy and peace. The fear is gone....

So often in life, endings can bring melancholy and sadness. Our minds think that all "good" things must/should last "forever", or at least until we don't hold value in them anymore and then carelessly toss them "away". But remember...there really is no 'away'. Our culture views specific endings as failures. For example, an illness, a lay off, a divorce...a physical death. We fear them, we fight them, we hold them at bay and often judge ourselves and others as we watch ending happening. It reminds us that really, we have no ultimate control, and that makes us uncomfortable....to say the least, excurutiating at best.

If I have learned one thing in the last 15 years, it is that change is never REALLY bad; even though it is painful and dark and scarey at the beginning and in the middle. Each change has brought me, in the end, more of all the things that make life rich and delicious. I (l)earned this year, a joyful relationship with death. I have no fear of death, and we (me and death) have this sort of unspoken secret that we can laugh about together, cause now I get "the joke". I understand that won't make sense to many, but oh, well. If it makes sense to you...congratulations.

Both birth and death are painful...and unavoidable.

Ask a woman who has gone through childbirth. It's an intense mix of physical and emotional sensations. It's all of it, wrapped up in one package and once it starts you're along for the ride....But, also ask that woman if all the pain of childbirth was worth it and she will wisely smile, even if she can't put it in words, because words fail in comparison to what she gained from it, and continues to gain from that one experience that keeps on giving.

So as 2007 comes to a close I will thank him. For it All. The pain, the joy, the synchronicities, the downright miracles, the teachings, the ending of this section of time, but never will I forget what amazing, often buried, treasures were brought in each day. I learned to ride the waves of uncertainty with new curiosity. I learned to endure the absence of much loved children, whether that absence was physical or emotional, and rejoice more fully in their return or anticipate a future return; and trust in the necessity of both. I learned how to let emotion flow through me; I learned that I can survive without food, or artificial light much longer than I thought possible; that nature trully supports ALL of life and ALL of my needs, whether I recognize her as the giver or not, that all quests are easier and more powerful when supported by community. I learned how to take care of myself to a new level and to surrender to the wisdom of my body and heart; to let go of the expectations put on me by anyone or anything, including myself. I learned how to "Do Nothing" in total stillness and peace and embrace all the gifts of fallow time...to name just a few.

So I vow to myself to show up fully in this magical Nature ride of 2008. Bring it on!

I embrace it and ALL it will bring as it emerges, in the cold and darkness of night, so will I more fully be born unto myself. I will gently cradle and wrap us up, vowing to raise it up as itself; not trying to fix it or mold it into what my mind tells me it should look like, act like or feel like......as it should be in all of my life.

Anyone want to join me?