The Wisdom of the Elements

Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon?  I have, some time ago.  Nothing could have prepared me for the absolute breath-taking view.  You don’t realize how very tiny you are until you stand beside it, feel the ancient energy of it and imagine its creation.  I don’t know exactly why, but I was remembering the Grand Canyon in a dream I had a few nights ago.  I didn’t recall it for its aesthetic beauty and grandeur.  I recalled it because of what my mind has been wrestling with forever, it seems.

The steadfast rock and Earth surrounds us, water flows within and around us.  Great rivers erode the rock slowly over time and yet in some place and at some times, the work of the water flowing etches gently and cuts deeply into the Earth.  If you think about it or truly realize it, as stunningly beautiful as the Grand Canyon is – remember, it was created by water flowing over rock and wind whipping through it over time. I think of us, mere mortals, our daily trials and tribulations and even the minor things we tend to get so upset about.  To me, it’s all like water flowing over rocks and wind whipping through.  We may be etched and cut into by the various elements of existence that flow around and through us in our experience but we are no less beautiful in the end than before our lives began.

We do so many things, we strive to achieve this or that, to acquire, to gather and hold things to us and that is a funny thing to me.  Nothing remains forever just as it is.  Life here is forever changing, merging, falling away - blowing away even. We fly, we crash, and we tumble and flow.  Just like the wind, the water, just like the rocks we live upon.  We can stand firm in the fullness of our being and let life flow within and around us.  It doesn’t matter what we do, what we achieve, what we learn or acquire, the part of us that witnesses all of our life-experience, remains the same – unharmed and ever transformed.  We live, we breathe and we die but there is that part of us that remains untouched like the day we were born, pure and pristine.  It doesn’t matter what we go through and grow through because in the end, that pure and pristine part of us lives on.

The point of this is not that you should not acquire, grow or learn as you live and breathe in this life but rather that you should understand what remains and what changes.  In a way, what remains and changes is the same.  That is confusing in a way.  Perhaps it is all about aspects and perspectives of what we choose, how we take in an experience or how it is we might use it?  We ARE.  No matter what we have or don’t, who supports us or won’t, how we live or die – no matter what, we still ARE.  We are made neither greater nor lesser by what we do really.  We still ARE.  If we dress Class Act, or bare cozy and comfy, we still just ARE.  I think that the more I live, the more I understand what nature is trying so hard to teach us.

These observations and thoughts didn’t come to me all at once.   These thoughts didn’t occur to or comfort me as I acquired and gathered, or while I surrendered and lost.  Whether I was climbing ladders, or admitting defeat, I still AM.  There is a part of me that remains pure and pristine no matter what it is I mire myself in.  It seems that what I do, is for my entertainment, because I feel moved to do this or that.  It feels good sometimes to do this and that.  It feels bad sometimes to do this or that.  But when the feelings of whatever it is I am or was engaged in fade, I remain just as whole as I was.  I still AM.

I go back to my memories of the Grand Canyon and take a slow and easy breath in and out. The water is not evil because it cut the walls of the canyon.  The colorful rocks that have withstood the years and seasons are not weak because they stood still.  No matter what the experience, they still ARE and yet they are beautifully transformed in a way by the experience but their essence and their power is not lost or made lesser by interaction with the elements.  When I see the rocks now, I feel gratitude and deep appreciation for their existence.  When I see the rain, water flowing – I feel grateful and a deep affinity for it’s existence.  When the wind blows it carries aspects of rock and water and I’m grateful as the air I breathe carries the pure power of transformation.  When I feel the heat of the sun, I am reminded of the gifts of transformation it too brings.  These things can harm and support me but I am made neither greater nor lesser for my experience of them.

You, in your lives, living day in and day out, working and achieving or learning and growing – you are made no greater or lesser as a result of your experience.  Even though you may be transformed willingly or unwillingly remember that there is an aspect of you that will remain pure and pristine as the day you were born.  Live, laugh, play and love.  Enjoy fully the richness of your experience here.  Appreciate your surroundings, check in now and then to see if you find value in what you are learning. Strive if you feel moved to – to understand all of your amazing and magical teachers in this life.  Everything matters. You too matter.  Never mind how life has shaped you, cut through you or changed you.  Your soul is still beautiful and filled with magic.  You still ARE.  Blessings of great love to you.

Copyright 2020, Jaie Hart (Photo NPS.org)

Welcome to Your Life

The first day of a new year always brings up some interesting feelings. First, “We made it through the last,” with a huge sigh of relief.  Funny that is considering our time is limited here in this frame of focus.  Why we wish to get through something I’d like to say I don’t understand but I do. The thing is, every day and every moment is more precious than any precious stone or metal you can mine from our beautiful planet.  It’s hard to see at ground zero of a situational or emotional disaster we’ve just faced but if we could but remember, we wanted to experience the fullness of life, we might view things differently.

In Mindfulness meditation we are taught that there is a beginning to emotion, resistance and feeling adverse towards the things and situations in our lives we aren’t particularly interested in dealing with and then there is an end.  If we could find a way to ride the wave, become the quiet center of the storm and witness the amazing wonder that life is with all of its intricacies, complexities along with our own emotions with dispassionate understanding, we might learn to see things a bit differently.

On this first day of the year, I have no resolutions as I have no regrets to solve.  All I have experienced and who I have experienced with all the way back to my youngest years I am truly grateful for.  That’s not to say I won’t set goals and strive for certain areas of focus important to me.  First and foremost my focus will be on peace knowing I must always search for and find that peace within first, then I will be more able to see and feel that as I witness and react or respond to the outside world.  My next point of focus will be on compassion.  Not just with others but myself.  For if I am unable to find within and hold compassion for myself, any attempt to exhibit that towards others in the outside world will be inauthentic and superficial and well, that just isn’t me.  My next point of focus is on two words, I AM.  These, I feel are self-evident but for those who haven’t experienced or heard these two words used all alone, believe me they do not represent alone.  They represent the greatness available to all of humanity who can achieve that greatness through remembering, through realization and through the allowing by letting go of ideals and those things the world teaches and in some ways forces us to measure ourselves against.

Life is not a grand competition.  You’re really competing only with yourselves to attempt, if you want to, to be better than you were a year, a month, a day or a moment before.  We have that power – that power to learn and grow and if you’ve read my blog – go back to the very first entry and you’ll find a very lost and frustrated soul but I had just learned to open up to seeing things differently.  I remain so because I’ve learned that is the only way I can live my life – being open – allowing and accepting myself just exactly as I am while I fumble, stumble, fail and try again and again to learn my own life lessons.  We’re all just learning to make our way but you know what, we’re in this together. 

So, today I find myself wanting to hold a space for not only myself, but all I know and every other human across the globe and so I shall.  With great love, compassion and courage do I hold a space for all of humanity, for the Earth herself and every other living thing here.  Today isn’t the only opportunity you have to try something new or to learn or make changes or shift and change if that is what you desire.  In every moment you can be made anew if you focus on that and allow that to be.  So, allow.  Let your dreams become your reality. Let yourselves heal.  Allow yourselves to let gently slip away any person, place, thing or situation that no longer serves you and open yourself up to receiving that which will.  Blessings for a beautiful day.

© 2016 Jaie Hart (Photo/words)

 

Embracing Change

 

Sometimes in life we get rather comfortable with the routine of things.  We’re happily doing this or that humming right along and then suddenly it happens, change peers at you just above the horizon.  Sometimes that change is actually coming from deep within you but you may not notice that until you learn to become incredibly aware of how you create in this life and why.

Change often seems like an unwanted surprise and something we often at first resist.  But here is a little nugget of truth you’ve probably heard before or know deep down inside:  If nothing ever changed, we would become complacent, our senses dulled by routine and our brain cells would waste away without the challenge that change brings. 

So, we mix it up a bit or the universe in its infinite wisdom seems to help you along with that whether you are willing or not.  The depth of discomfort change will bring you depends solely on your level of resistance to it.  What we resist persists and so it’s best to face change with courage.  I feel that way about change.

Change is hard to deal with whether we choose it or it chooses us.  The thing to remember is that change is always good.  No.  Of course it doesn’t always feel good but when you get past the moment of big change and look back, you can often see the wisdom you may not have gained without it.  Even unwanted change can bring us necessary growth that we ultimately benefit greatly from.

So much change is on the wind as is so often the case for me.  I’ve learned to look at a change a little differently.  Instead of tensing up in fear or bracing at the thought of it, I just sort of jump into it and take what comes.  There is always something good in the end.  Always.  I can’t think of a single change that did not carry some form of benefit even if it initially brought me pain.  The pain contrasts, hones and refines our character and can make us better and stronger.  We just have to allow it to be that for us and then it will be.  Resisting change just makes it more painful.  Embracing it with curiosity and staying in the moment, makes it much more palatable or at least a tiny bit less painful to deal with.

Sometimes change means we have to mourn the way things used to be.  It’s okay to be in touch with your emotions when change shows up at your door.  Denying emotion is not a loving thing to do for one’s self.  Allowing yourself to feel how you feel is a very kind thing to do for you.  Trusting yourself to manage the change is another way to minimize any suffering.  You can handle change.  You can manage change.  You can recover from change.  You can even find some kind of silver lining in it if you want to.  Everything comes spinning right back to you and your thoughts and perceptions about change.

Change is the one thing we can always count on in life.  Why not settle in and get comfortable with that idea and find a way to be okay with it?  If you don’t like certain changes, depending upon what they are, you have decisions to make. We do get to make some choices in life.  While we cannot stop the sun from setting, we can learn to love the stars.  If we don’t care for sunlight and sunburns, we can move into the shade and still enjoy the day.  Being willing to be a change agent for yourself is sometimes very necessary to bring about your own growth too.  Change is not the enemy.  We can become our own enemy when we face it.  It’s up to us how we will choose to see it.  We can struggle against it and suffer or we can let it flow and carry us to a better place in time.

© 2015 Jaie Hart (Photo/Words)