Inspiration

The air has gone chilly and the skies are grey.  A slight drizzle is on the horizon and the temperature sits at 58 degrees fahrenheit.  Today is Wednesday.

The week has been full and empty.  While there have been responsibilities to be met, and tasks to complete;  there has also been a feeling of openness and expansiveness.  Not sure how that happens, but these days, this feeling seems to happen more and more.

In taking a walk in the forest earlier in the week, it was striking to see how the natural world has so much to share and to say about life and living fully.  Along the path was a fallen alder tree - it was old and weathered.  One could see the tree had lived a very long and full life. The fascinating thing was to see that out of the fallen trunk of the tree, there were new tree trunks coming up.  There were birds flying near the trees that were the descendants of the old, fallen one.  Something about all that interplay brought out feelings that were mixed - just like the full and empty aspect of the week.

On one hand, it was beautiful and nourishing to be bathing in the forest and walking on a soft trail;  on the other, it was profoundly moving and sad to see the old tree that had lived out its life and now was lying on the ground.  And then, the inspiration came.  It was in seeing that the old tree was actually a base for new growth, young trees were coming out of the trunk – or maybe, what looked like the new growth was, in fact,  a continuation of the original life of the old tree. Something about that interplay was uplifting.

It was such an affirmation of the fact that there is no beginning, and no end;  that there is an inextricable interconnectedness of all life;  that nothing exists on its own but is in constant interplay as to form.  And in the end, there is letting go so that another iteration can emerge - whether it is in human families, the world of trees, the life of the sea, and the movement of the earth itself - there is an endless series of existence and non-existence.  And not surprisingly, this is a source of tremendous inspiration to remember to hold reverence in relation to life.

Emerging from the forest bath, re-entering the world of human affairs the fact of having touched a source of inspiration helped to blunt the news of a disturbing clash between elder/youth, black/white, observers/actors.  The incident, captured on video has created the most recent outrage related to racialized conflict.  Issues of safety, accountability, repair - will all be raised again.  The inspiration of what the forest has to teach will not reach this event and its aftermath