I’ve learned a lot about life and its transience in this past year. And as I consider how quickly everything changes I’ve begun thinking a lot about
Befriending Life,
by simply being grateful, awake, and aware of moments and days of grace and beauty. That includes allowing myself to grieve when I experience the loss of someone or something which is near and dear to me and also extending love and compassion to everyone around me. Everyone experiences loss or trauma of one kind or another. Who knows what is going on inside of the people we meet, even the ones with smiling faces?
I know about loss in a more visceral way than I did before. So I watch carefully as the hesitant unfurling of early spring has given way to a frenzy of green growth everywhere I look. The air almost vibrates with the life that surrounds me. Things change so quickly. Blossoms open and fall in a matter of days. Ducklings hatch, grow and become adolescents, seemingly, in the blink of an eye. The greens of trees deepen and become the greens that announce summer is here.
My intention is to pay attention and to love this time of year when everything seems new and fresh and the greens are so green that they almost hurt your eyes. None of us knows how many springs we will experience. So I pay attention to this moment, this day, this spring. And I think about my friend who is no longer here to greet this spring, remember springtime walks with her, and hope that she is in a place that is as splendid as springtime.
I think that there was a sort of zeal attached to grief, of seeing the world in a completely different way. I don’t see the world in the same way as I did before. It’s much more complex than I thought and much more fragile. And this creates a different feeling towards people in general. I found, anyway. I hear that a lot, that grief and empathy are very much connected, in the same way as loss and love are very much connected, too. And that the common energy running through life is loss, but you can translate that into love too, quite easily. They’re very, very much connected. And that comes around from an understanding of just how fragile and vulnerable and precarious the nature of life seems to be.
— Nick Cave, OnBeing Interview with Krista TIppett
I feel like I can hardly keep up with the daily transformations in the landscape. Everything is changing so quickly this time of year. I wish that I could slow down time and make these days last longer. But all I can do is to soak up every minute of each day that I can.
Gratitude for Everything
Yesterday’s rain was quite wonderful. I feel so grateful that we did not experience severe weather as many people did. As I look around at all of the vivid green color I think that the trees and plants must be very happy to have the mix of rain and sun that helps them grow and thrive.
When I contemplate what befriending life means to me personally I realize that my connection and love for the beauty of nature and the creatures around me lifts me up and makes life beautiful. So my aspiration is to pay attention and try to be a good steward of this place where we live and the many gifts it brings us.
I also had a recent epiphany about forgiveness that somehow fits in with all of the swirling thoughts I’ve been having about life and death. That epiphany was that forgiveness means realizing that there was never anything to forgive. I am seeing past trauma through a new lens that is showing me that my life has unfolded perfectly. I would not be who I am today without everything that came before. And I would not want to change anything that got me to this place of experiencing regular joy, gratitude, grace, and beauty.
Drifting
I was enjoying everything: the rain, the path
wherever it was taking me, the earth roots
beginning to stir.
I didn’t intend to start thinking about God,
it just happened.
How God, or the gods, are invisible,
quite understandable.
But holiness is visible, entirely.
It’s wonderful to walk along like that,
though not the usual intention to reach an answer
but merely drifting.
Like clouds that only seem weightless
but of course are not.
Are really important.
I mean, terribly important.
Not decoration by any means.
By next week the violets will be blooming.
Anyway, this was my delicious walk in the rain.
What was it actually about?
Think about what it is that music is trying to say.
It was something like that.
— Mary Oliver
Perhaps you, too, could think about befriending life and what that means to you this week. Enjoy the late spring greens. Soak in the sunshine and the rain, we need them both to thrive.
May you walk in beauty.
Note: I made the photos in today’s post during an afternoon walk in my neighborhood when the sun came out between the rain showers yesterday.
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