Do you ever wonder what nature would say to you if you took the time to listen?
Last week I found myself outside on a glorious sunny day in late May, the first chance I'd had to get back into the garden after what seemed like weeks of spring rain. I looked around and found that everywhere I looked, there were things that needed doing: weeds to be weeded, plants to be planted, moved, pruned back or fed. I'd been late starting my gardening season, but the plants were growing right on cue, whether I was out there or not. Thank God and Mother Nature for perennials! :)
Not knowing where to start, I decided to try the NatureConnect activity, but only did a partial version of it, since I didn't have the full text outside with me. I stilled my mind, closed my eyes, and respectfully asked permission to be in what I thought of as my own back yard. Then I waited for a response, for something there to attract me, to invite me in. The response was so subtle but so totally engrossing, that it was days later that I realized what had happened. My whole focus had shifted, from seeing the lack, the needs, all the things I needed to "do" there, to seeing the abundance, the variety, the beauty and the open, unabashed extravagance of leaves. I was in awe of the leaves in my garden! I had borrowed the camera from work, and within 2 hours, I had around 70 photos of some of the most amazing lush, green, shiny new leaves I'd ever seen... that were right there all along, right beside the weeds. And what did they say to me? Their wordless splendour spoke of new beginnings, hope, beauty and the persistent generosity of nature. It was exactly what I needed to hear.
Here is a bit of the beauty I saw with my new eyes: Turning Over A New Leaf.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Update: As I continue to live with the inner transformation that began when I did this exercise last week, I am amazed at the increase in love, beauty, joy, and synchronicity in my daily life. I can only attribute it to an affirmation from "out there" in the rest of the Web of Life, that I have been welcomed into this matrix on a conscious level and I am on the right path. I feel as if I have opened a door and stepped into a new world. I feel an amazing mix of calm excitement, open-hearted wonder and deep faith in the wisdom that is guiding these changes we will be going through, even though we can't yet see what is around the corner.
''Perhaps the answer to our global situation will not come from logic, or from organizing protests and marches, or from politicians, or from rearranging who gets how much of what is left of the earth's resources. Perhaps these answers can only come from nature itself, from within each of us who dares to reconnect with this ancient instinctual wisdom within us, to really listen, and to follow its guidance.
Animals (who never lost their connection to the web of life the way man has), were guided from within to seek safety on higher ground before the tsunami hit in Southeast Asia this past winter. I am learning to trust that this same intelligent guidance system is alive and well everywhere on earth, that even though we may have lost our awareness of it, it is still available to us, and it welcomes our conscious reconnection with it. I have absolute faith that for those who do reconnect, it will guide us from within toward a future that could perhaps be better than even our best visionary thinkers can conceive of right now, because it is beyond "thought".
''What an adventure! :D
~ Love, Sharon''
Threads: Spiritual Practice