Change can be exciting. The changing season brings possibilities for the return of feathered friends I haven’t seen since spring. This morning I saw the first of the coots return, yesterday it was yellow-rumped warblers, and Thursday it was Franklin’s gulls. The change of seasons keeps everything fresh and new. I become more excited each year for the possibilities of each new season.
Change can be sad. I haven’t seen a hummingbird for two days now and I am really going to miss the little green bombers playing outside my office window. Fewer birds are singing now and I will depend on the cardinals and wrens to tide me over until spring. Sorrow and excitement often go hand in hand - when one door closes another door usually opens, even if we can’t see it yet.
Change can require all of my patience and fortitude. I got my new iPhone yesterday, my first upgrade in three years. I was hoping to improve the quality of sunrise photos without carrying a second DSLR. My DSLR still has advantages but the advantages of the phone are starting to equal out.
My first impression is that the quality is better, but will require changes in my workflow, including which apps I use and figuring out a new way to get watermarks on the photos. The Lightroom app I’ve relied on seems to produce the same quality on the new phone it did on the old phone. It’s easy to let myself think I don’t have time for these changes and want to revert back to what I know. It’s easy to forget that I always figure it out eventually and allow myself to be in the messy middle.
Change is inevitable. I wrote in January that Change is Time Consuming, and I’m seeing it again now with my phone. I have to slow down, take more time, and let some things go to learn something new. Yet change happens whether we are ready or not. My DSLR is aging and well past its expected lifespan on shutter count. I dread having to get a new camera. I know this one so well, it’s subconscious to use it. They don’t sell it anymore and the day will come when it has to be replaced. That’s how life works.
Change requires patience. There are patterns I’ve been trying to shift for years now. Patterns in how I move, how I sit, how I breathe, and how I react to the world. Patterns that are stuck in my nervous system. Making changes like this requires me to slow down, pay attention, and persist with the changes when I want to give up. I have made changes and my body is still asking for more.
Change requires trust. My mentors have been telling me for years that slowing down, doing less, making the movements smaller, and pausing to let your body absorb the new pattern is the key to real change. I thought I had “gotten” this before, yet now I am finding there is a whole new level of small, slow, and easier. I’m noticing how often I skip the pause and just really understanding that the pause is where the gold lives.
If curiosity and persistence have been my superpowers, trust has been the dragon I continue to fight. When change feels uncomfortable, confusing, overwhelming, and endless, trust is critical. Now I’m hoping to befriend the dragon, get to know it, stop trying to fight against it, and see if I can find a way to embody it. Trust has to live in the nervous system, in the limbic system, even in your cells. This journey has been twenty-plus years in the making. Am I finally knocking on the dragon’s door?
Do my feathered friends struggle this much with the changes they go through? When they molt their feathers do they have trouble letting go or do they just embrace the new feathers that are perfect for the season about to arrive? When they take off on their long migration journeys, do they try to do too much at once or are they so aligned to their inner wisdom they know what is just the right amount?
I am grateful for whatever keeps me going, for that little spark that makes me try one more time, try something new, get up in the morning, and know it’s worth it. There’s a Jewish saying:
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”
This phrase applies to our work in the world including our work on ourselves. There likely is no destination to arrive at, no goal to complete, only the knowing that somehow this desire that drives me to be more at peace, more at ease, to embody more love and kindness is work I cannot abandon.
Meanwhile, I walk and observe how nature walks through the change of seasons. I ask the trees and the birds for guidance and listen for their wisdom. After all, the cells of my body are made of the same stardust that lives in the trees, the birds, and even the water around me.
Sending love to all of you for the changes in your life right now, be they big or small, wished for or thrust upon you. May you navigate your path with the grace of the egret. (Remember, the egret is kind of awkward on land and has a very loud squawk of a voice!)
Karen, thank you for making reference to that often cited piece of Jewish wisdom. In my 77 years on this plane of existence, that quote has often helped me believe that each of us matters in ways we will never fully understand. We are not meant to complete life's jigsaw puzzle but we must believe we are an essential piece ...
So many wonderful pics today! Each says Karen Davis for me! I think you must be doing something very right and rather meaningful. Look at this chorus of mid-70 faithful followers who show up with every post of your heartfelt words and singular pictures of our world. If we are the dragon that you are looking to trust, we've got your back! Like the great crested flycatcher who goes out over the Gulf of Mexico not just for the first time, but again and again, we want to be in your company in the crossing.