Springtime makes her appearance early in the northwest. In mid-January, walks in the forest revealed tentative new buds on Indian plum bushes, red osha dogwood sprouts tender buds nearby. In February a few wooly worms joined me on my walk along our country road. Now at month's end flowering trees are abundant, daffodils have been blooming for several weeks, rose bushes show red leaves on prickly stems. I can still see snow on the western hillsides; a winter storm is due to drop up to 2 feet of new snow in the mountains and passes may be treacherous. A couple of weeks ago, winds blew over dozens of trees closing the road to Mt. Baker. Though spring teases us with her early arrival, she is unpredictable. A warm and sunny morning may quickly become a blustery evening, an overnight snowstorm or floods along the rivers.
The inevitable changes in nature seem to cause humans to register changes in temperament and mood. A short burst of sunshine can lift the weariness of grey, soggy days; flowers and budding trees, returning robins, frogs croaking in the darkness all can create a sense of anticipation and ease. Events, relationships, news stories also impact us; our moods are often unstable and complex.
Why is this so? Why are we subject to instantaneous mood changes, innumerable opinions, continuous judgments about how things should be; about what is satisfying or what makes for gloominess, depression, anxiety. Is all of our thinking really so? Do the externals - weather, world events, changes in age or health status, losses of loved ones, size of bank accounts, new possessions, relationship challenges or improvements - really have such power to affect our moods? Of course they do, if we allow them to. Consider the choice in that if.
I suggest that our challenge, moment by moment, is to be aware of what is, without the qualifiers we usually attach to what is. For example: a bird singing is. A blossoming tree is. A snowstorm is. An insult from a friend is. A serious illness is. Death is.
When we allow what is to be, with no opinion, no desire for it to be other than it is, life presents itself to us as complete, and as it is. Nothing more. Nothing less. Great are the gifts in this allowing.
The inevitable changes in nature seem to cause humans to register changes in temperament and mood. A short burst of sunshine can lift the weariness of grey, soggy days; flowers and budding trees, returning robins, frogs croaking in the darkness all can create a sense of anticipation and ease. Events, relationships, news stories also impact us; our moods are often unstable and complex.
Why is this so? Why are we subject to instantaneous mood changes, innumerable opinions, continuous judgments about how things should be; about what is satisfying or what makes for gloominess, depression, anxiety. Is all of our thinking really so? Do the externals - weather, world events, changes in age or health status, losses of loved ones, size of bank accounts, new possessions, relationship challenges or improvements - really have such power to affect our moods? Of course they do, if we allow them to. Consider the choice in that if.
I suggest that our challenge, moment by moment, is to be aware of what is, without the qualifiers we usually attach to what is. For example: a bird singing is. A blossoming tree is. A snowstorm is. An insult from a friend is. A serious illness is. Death is.
When we allow what is to be, with no opinion, no desire for it to be other than it is, life presents itself to us as complete, and as it is. Nothing more. Nothing less. Great are the gifts in this allowing.
RSS Feed