Cycles

I sit under the trees – the ones You sent me in this moment…feet resting on earth, hair bathed in sun, and I begin to feel the mystery of Your ways. Bird calls, ant crawls, clouds shift and the cycle carries on. Nature, exploring the moment yet always living reality…in whatever phase they find themselves in…without complaint and with fervent dedication to the season.

I close my eyes and see time spinning around me like waves in a tornado. My body moves from left to right, up and down, pulled to the eye of the storm and thrown to the outermost edges…all in a blink. Time is not linear. This existence contains patterns of symmetry and of beginnings that mask as endings. That’s what You show me.

Cycles. Experiences given, with perfect timing for individualized journeys … to learn from, to grow from…because it all comes back….and this is your practice round. Guaranteed. Everything is ordained…every moment…every person you lock eyes with, the flowers that grow against your path, the birds that fly overhead the very moment you look up – it’s all for you beloved one. The suffering, the pain that burns deep in your chest and miraculously one day is mostly a memory and you’re laughing at truly nothing…except it’s everything because it was given to you to make you laugh.

The opportunity to relive the moment will resurface – for me it’s happening 13 years later with a blue eyed sunshine baby. I’m deep in the spin, starting one place and thinking that’s done and that another road is forming…oh how I wanted to run down that road. Visions of pulling up my skirts (because in this sentence it has to be a skirt) , grounding my toes in the warm dusty road and sprinting down avenues of trees and love and my form growing smaller and smaller as I pull away from past experiences with bravery and gusto and openness. I did. I did it for exactly one year of my life. I became the person with the people that felt safe, I felt the expansiveness…with the future that seemed different from the one I thought was my destiny.

But, the invisible thread of loose ends tugged on my spirit, and something Greater Than My Will said “You aren’t finished here…run back home with eyes wide open.” It was a sharp pivot, but it was also part of the dream of my existence and I knew it. I could have kept running forward and that experience would have brought me to others, which would have brought me to others – and they wouldn’t have been wrong…but listening deeply is one of the tools I’ve learned, so I turned back home.

Here I am again. In the midst of toddler wars that I’ve mostly learned can’t be war because I’m a peace maker. Here I am again, with long nights of a fevered baby and my head spinning with the fear of “why is she sick? Maybe I caused it…” and the inner voice that says “don’t give into fear, you know what to do.” Here I am again, watching the choices I make and questioning them and constantly desiring to be everything to everyone in the best way – but now knowing I can be who I need to be, and that’s what is best for everyone. Here I am again, failing everyday but having learned that it’s not failure to wipe your tears and start over beautifully and kindly.

Here I am again, longing to paint, travel, and create visions of myself living in perfection. Here I am imagining a rich life built on artificiality…but this time choosing “no. That isn’t who I AM.”

Here I am daring to dream about anything without feeling like it might not be…and feeling lost in it’s not being. Here I am again realizing that the cycle has returned for me to take everything I’ve learned, and to use it…for the Higher Good…even if it only effects my life.

But a cycle never does truly effects just one life does it?

It’s all part of ALL. Just like the tiny ant crawling up milky white aspen bark, and the dandelion that surfaces in spring and returns in the fall – as small as these things are they are there for a reason. Hope. They remind me of who I am. They remind me that my life behind the walls is truly open to the world and what colors the inside is what paints the outside. They remind me that this work I do, even if it’s not seen and followed and paid for – is exactly what my path is about. Seva. Service. A life offering to Great Spirit who’s beauty permeates my being. I don’t know why this is my path…but it is- and my soul wanted it for a reason.

Someday, my feet will find that dusty road because they’ve been there before…and that’s part of it. I wasn’t there for no reason. But for now, in this season, my bliss comes from knowing that I have learned from past experiences. For now, my bliss comes from knowing that I am dying to self and longing for Spirit – dedicating my life to a spiritual path that isn’t for the weak, or the faint of heart. It’s for those that love the Lord and know that Spirit creates beautiful masterpieces in the simplest forms. For now, my bliss comes in knowing that each moment is an expression of the Divine, and I am a piece of the Infinite. I’m not small in any way, or invisible, but seen in my entirety by the One That Loves Me Most.

So like nature, I offer myself to this season without complaint, and fervent dedication to my life path. I will ground myself in the Truth of the Everlasting…love…and dance beneath the waves of God’s most amazing grace.

“make your prayers highest wish come true – that you may be fortunate enough to surrender your little self into the greater Self’s and God’s safe-keeping. That is the path of rebirth. That is the great transformation.” – Lars Muhl, The Law of Light