Being With Life As It Is
April 24, 2022
To be with life as it is. It seems every path I go down looking for peace, I find the same message. We must learn to be with life as it is. It’s not the message I’m looking for, but it continues to be the one I find.
Some moments are easy. Thursday morning was calm and cool with perfect fog. Not so dense it blocked the light but just enough to watch it dance in the light of the rising sun. Not many people about, leaving me free to enjoy the swallows and ducks and the general feeling of peace.
Later that morning I wandered to a little spot where bluebells grow. I sat down on a bridge over a nearby creek and watched a Louisiana waterthrush bobbing his tail along as he meandered down the rocks. I noticed some wood ducks down the way periodically flying up into the trees, perhaps checking for nesting sites. I saw my first warbler of the season, a northern parula.
On mornings like this, magic seems easy. As I sat watching the ducks, I saw motion come from the left side of the stream. A long, dark creature moved quickly from the bank, over the rocks, into the water. Then it dove and I never saw it again. Luckily the camera confirmed what I had imagined - an American mink! A rare sight for me, only the second time I’ve seen one.
Yes, the calm days are easier.
Today the winds are blowing. Strong. Fierce. Warm. The kind of winds we get here in the plains where there are no mountains to stop them for hundreds of miles. There would be no migration without the winds. The rains too have been intermittent this week and there would be no life without the rains. Oh but still I struggle to settle with the wind and the storms, to be at peace when life is unsettled.
I watch the swallows hovering on the wind. They seem to fully enjoy the experience of the wind, as if it feels good against their feathers. A snowy egret flies by and I have to double-check the camera to make sure I saw that correctly. Another bird I’ve only seen here once before.
Further away I see an eagle hovering, using the wind to stay nearly in place. An osprey flies over moving with the wind so quickly I can barely keep him in the camera frame. Raptors too seem to love the wind, using it to hover easily, giving them a majestic view of the ground below.
The wind and even the storms bring their own kind of magic. It is a magic I am less comfortable with - especially the inner winds and storms. I am trying to learn to drop my resistance and let the inner storms pass through. I wonder if I can learn to hover, feel the winds on my feathers and ride along. For now, it’s a lovely dream - and a challenging practice.
How do you deal with the winds and storms of life?
Spring is showing up here all over. The ground has turned green, the trees have buds and the pollen has taken over my sinuses. Every day new birds appear. How is spring showing up where you live? (Or fall if you are in the southern hemisphere?)
As we in South Florida count down the days to the start of the annual six-month hurricane season, I can very much appreciate your love/hate relationship to winds. The fearsome potential of the outer certainly stirs up the anxiety and dread of the inner! But as you say, just being with it "as it is," and as prepared physically, mentally, emotionally, and prayerfully as one can be, brings its own sense of peace and surrender to what must be endured if it cannot be changed. Your rare snowy egret is a staple of the neighborhood down here! They walk around slowly, looking both sartorially elegant and slightly arrogant, and will perch on cars as if enthroned! They will not be "shooed!" They merely give you The Stare, and proudly walk off unfazed. But when they take flight, they take your breath away at their beauty and grace. Beauty and power combined -- like the winds they ride so effortlessly! Have a blessed Sunday, my friend.
Thaks again, Karen, for bringing the delight of the morning into pictures and prose.