As I sit at my window this morning, enjoying my first cup of coffee, I become aware of the trees outside and a gentle spring breeze blowing. I noticed the fresh vibrant new leaves as they flutter, shake and sway in the wind - dancing and glistening at their brightest. Mother nature is a great teacher of life if we are willing to make time in our day and witness her teachings and gifts. These little leaves, twigs and branches do not fight and resist the wind - they dance, they move and allow the wind to blow over them. Should they resist, fight and stifle against the wind, chances increase that they will be ripped off, so they choose to dance for a season or two. Paradoxically this is what makes a tree stronger, the movement and bending with the wind stimulates the development of new cells and thereby growth.
Shouldn't we choose to dance amidst the wind and storms of life.
We so often fight and resist when faced with challenges and difficulties and strangely enough the experience of our suffering becomes more fierce the more we fight back. It reminds me of the saying "that which you resist, persists. I am not saying that we should sit passively and just wait for things to get better, there is a huge difference between avoidable and unavoidable suffering. What will happen if we choose to accept what is happening, even though it is unpleasant, and make the choice to understand and grow, both because and in spite of our circumstances. What will happen if we choose to dance with the storms of life?
Believe me, it is not easy, we find it very difficult to accept hardship as part of the ebb and flow of life, we reason it is senseless. The poet Kahlil Gibran in "The Prophet" says the following " Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding."
I can tell you our struggles in life become more bearable when we take a brief moment and ask - what am I supposed to learn from this, how can I grow and become a better person as a result of this.
I end this post with a beautiful verse from the poem "The Dance" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer:
Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance,
the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart,
and I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet
and the stars overhead make my heart whole again and again."