What if...

Today, there are puffy clouds over the water, with the light of the day shading them a light pink on a light blue background.  The color pallet is livelier than most days as the sun rises.  The temp remains cool - in the mid-forites, fahrenheit.  One cal feel that the energy is moving.

What if you were not born to be in the place and time of your current reality? Would you have the same look, wear the same clothing, do the same work in a different space and time?  What if you were unable to see yourself?  Would you know to find your way to a practice that might allow you to see your own being?

The questions abound for most.  Sometimes the question of, "What if..." comes in waves over a person's lifetime.  Then, one forgets - no need to go down that road because it is one that can create unnecessary diversions from "reality.".   But what if changing that reality into something more beautiful than what we know today needs to be imagined?  And even more importantly - what if that imagined reality is exactly what the world needs in order to navigate to safety and to a time of greater caring and compassion?  What if?

We live in a time of great uncertainty.  Some call it the Great Turning.  Others talk of the global "polycrisis", the "age of iron", and many other references that foretell of a time of multiple disasters, causing humanity to disappear from earth. Sometimes it feels quite evident that the trajectory has begun when the news of wars, protests, struggles to recover from disease and disasters is reported.  The imagination kicks in:  What if we could have known how to prevent the damage and how to build something that would nurture rather than nullify life itself?

We are traveling together, swiftly coming to the realization that all things are interconnected thanks to advances in so many areas of human interaction - travel, communication, medicine, and other forms of being in relationship to one another. Those interconnections are deep, complex, and complicated because of economics, politics, cultural difference.  What if those complexities could be simplified to cooperating?

The work of these times is to find a way to common ground.

One person alone cannot divert tragedies but each person can contribute to change that can help affirm life.  Whether in the form of addressing grief with healing practices; stepping in to support efforts to bring relief to those in struggle; holding hope in times of hopelessness - these are the places where one can begin to find the way.

A life comes into being in one way;  maturity is the ability to move through the times of, "What if..." that opens to imaginations of beautiful possibilities.

Listening to the blooms that are about to open in spring, the messages from the plant world begin -   "What if you continue to tend to us?  We promise to bring you new color and scents!"

Maybe transformation lies in asking, "What if..."