Spring Morning in the Woods Out Back
The mind tends to see things in a singularly simple, divided way: there is good and bad, ugly and beautiful. The imagination, in contrast, extends a greater hospitality to whatever is awkward, paradoxical or contradictory. … The imagination is always more loyal to the deeper unity of everything. It has patience with contradiction because there it glimpses new possibilities. And the imagination is the great friend of possibility. It always sees beyond the facts and situations to the cluster of possibilities in which each thing is shrouded. In a sense, this is what beauty is: possibility that enlarges and delights the heart. John O’Donohue (The Imagination Sees Through a Thing to the Cluster of Possibilities Which Shrouds It - essay in Beauty: The Invisible Embrace)
As Gaia and I attempt to ease more fully into spring, I wake to a quite chilly morning with the temperature well below freezing. The ritual winter morning fire in the wood stove continues for now.
I imagine mornings without the fire, basking in the warmth of the Sun beaming into the ‘summer room’ as I engage in my morning practices. That will come soon.
And with it, plants that winter indoors will be moved to their outdoor summer homes. Hummingbirds will arrive expecting to be fed. Tiny shoots of grass just emerging now will grow and their stems will dance in the wind. Bushes and trees with only specks of green today will burst into their array of verdant hues.
Splitting wood to make kindling will step aside for tending plants and enjoying colorful blooms. Turtlenecks will give way to polos and tees; hoodies and ball caps will replace down coats and wool hats.
Though I love the snuggling in and introspection of winter, imagining what is unfolding and the tasks that accompany this part of the cycle of life and seasons here in the mountains delights this heart. I’m filled with deep gratitude for all the conditions and choices that plopped me in this place almost 16 years ago.
The beauty that delights my heart is a continual source of wonder and curiosity. Nature feeds my soul and nourishes my imagination.
Taking a deep breath imagination shifts beyond me to our world. I imagine a world where I deeply know and live fully into the truth of Oneness. A world beyond the illusions of separation and worn-out structures that force choices and thrive on competition. I imagine a world where love and deep connection – with self, with community, with Mother Earth, and beyond – are our default ways of BEing, of doing, of building. Of Life.
I imagine an evolutionary leap in consciousness that seems prescient, swimming closely to the surface in the ocean of infinite possibilities. This trajectory represents the world that I want for my grandchildren and their progeny. It is the ancestor that I want to be. I feed it not by following the news of what is happening in our broken world, but by observing the beauty around me. By being grateful rather than fearful. And by reading and watching the wise words of those who have gone before and of contemporary, leading age thinkers and doers in cosmology, astrology, economics, agriculture, and more. Here’s a recent and, for me, inspiring, example.
From these I sense we can create our world anew, forming beautiful clusters of possibility that flow from clear minds and open hearts. Let’s feed our imaginations well. Our future is, after all, up to us.
Raven - Transformation, Shape-shifing, & Creativity on a Post