Good Morning, Great Creator!
Another gentle snowfall greets me this morning. The new few inches fill in and cover our old steps and tracks, and the land seems once again brand new. How peaceful it can be, just watching the gentle snowfall. Thank you. I’m glad to notice the beauty around me.
Yesterday was an exploration. I walked a portion of the river that runs nearby. Where I walked, no one had been since at least the last snowfall. At least, no human. There may have been the tracks of a fox, which I learned about while snowshoeing Friday. And, another type of track I didn’t know.
I enjoyed being by, and sometimes in, the river flowing by. There’s a soothing consistency to it – power and flow; beauty of sound and sight. I find it so rewarding to take time to notice the amazing world around us; to go adventuring to see what wonder is in store just around the next corner.
I thought of change yesterday as I walked. It is said you can never step in the same river twice. It’s a rather abstract thought, when you clearly have the river right here, in front of you.
But, really – what is the same about it?
In a minute, the water right here will be downriver some distance. What about an hour? A day? A year?
We define a river by the water in it; don’t we? But, that water isn’t really the river. That water will be gone in a relatively short period of time. Scoop some water out – is the river diminished? Can you take the river with you?
Water dances through the hydrologic cycle in our world, spending time as vapor in the atmosphere; forming variations of precipitation (including the snow that is now falling); then, perhaps as a liquid, flowing to the pull of gravity; to join in streams and rivers, or lakes and oceans. Then, perhaps evaporating off the surface of that water body, to re-ascend again as a vapor molecule.
At what point in that cycle is that molecule what it is truly meant to be? Is it really the cloud? The rain or snow? Is its true purpose being part of the river?
I say it a lot, and it may seem abstract, but Life is Change. We spend more of our life in transition then in being any one distinct, specific identity. Like the river, the smallest basic components of our makeup are constantly flowing and cycling through. The atoms and molecules of our physical body, that compose our blood, nerves, tissues, and cells – all change. Regularly. Constantly.
We may live in a house that was built from wood two hundred years ago; but, the material making up our bodies – our arms and legs, brain and heart – change cells constantly, like the flowing river.
So, which cells are, and which body is, distinctly us? When are we our true self?
Have you ever looked in the mirror and wondered – Who is this? This can’t be me; I’m not this old!
Remember yourself at five years old, going to school for the first time? Was that the true you? Or, was the real you the teenage you, when your body began maturing and changing? Or, was it the young adult adventurer, finally off on your own, making your own decisions, finally responsible for yourself?
In some ways, our sense of our true self is wherever and whoever we are right now. That’s somewhat true. But, even as our body has grown, changed, and matured; what about our personality and spirit? Our beliefs? Our experiences, and how we’ve processed and learned from them?
Change in our lives isn’t always linear and one-directional, and sometimes we struggle because we act like it is.
Change, in our life, isn’t about accumulation. It isn’t like snowfall totals, or pages written, days sober, or number of dollars in a bank account.
Change is about growth and maturity. Development and understanding.
Desiring to stay twenty-one doesn’t help us accept our thirties and forties.
The seed becomes a sprout; produces leaves, then flowers; gets pollinated and bears fruit, spreading seeds; then drops its leaves, dies, and begins decomposing, releasing its nutrients into the soil for the next year’s crops, generated from its own seeds.
Which part of that is it? How can we distinguish one singular identity, when within us is the mystery and magic of the entire Universe?
You and I, we are composed of the same components as stars. And, through some miracle, we breathe and generate a spark that sustains our lives. We are beyond just the changing bodies that house our spirit.
I think about the passing river. How it is, and isn’t, what I think it is – at the same time. How that’s true for me, and for all I meet. For my entire World. “Not knowing!”
Thank you for this awareness and learning, Great Guides!
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