Autumn and Winter on Display in the Mountains
How can we uproot the desire to impose our will upon the living worlds around us? How do we become more receptive to nonhuman languages and ways of being? Gavin Van Horn (Kinning: Introducing the Kinship Series)
This question has been with me since first reading it a week or so ago when I dove back into Volume 1 of fascinating series (Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations). The essence of the question isn’t new to me (or to you, if you’ve been ‘pivoting’ with me for a while), but the language landed deep when I revisited it this morning as Muse and I began the weekly exploration of what to share here.
Though Van Horn’s question is intended as a query into deepening our relationship with Nature and recognizing all of Life as our kin, it seems apropos as well in this time of social and political upheaval, when we don’t seem to have the capacity or willingness to get along with one another, much less to hold nonhuman life as kin. Our embeddedness in separation runs deep and wide. In separation we endeavor to control (Muse smiles, noting that hasn’t worked so well for humanity over the eons); in unity we flow with life. Flow, hmm…
Perhaps my attraction and attention to rivers and our local mountain streams these days is because they flow. Their flow is visible and audible, gifts of sight and sound that nourish this being. Toes feeling the movement of the chilly water, a sniff of the air’s freshness … dare I put the water to my lips for a taste?
All my senses point to flow when I’m in the presence of a river or stream. Shoulders drop into gravity’s ease and I sigh deeply … Ahh…..flowing with life.
I aim to walk through life in ITS flow rather than trying to schedule and control every moment. I want to do so in a grounded way, listening to all life – that of this body, mind, and soul as well as to life and the energy of life that surrounds me.
‘Where does the energy want to flow?’ becomes the primary question, overriding ‘how do I control this to go my way?’ and the stress that follows when my control efforts are foiled.
The question bubbled in me as my plan and schedule was thwarted by a technology breakdown earlier this week. The issue was beyond my limited capacity to solve tech issues, so I engaged a favorite computer techie to resolve the issue. I’d planned to schedule time with him later in the week for some technology upgrades and, in the process of dealing with the breakdown, learned that he wouldn’t be available at the time I’d planned. Ugh!
Present to becoming frazzled and irritated, I paused. Taking a deep breath, it was clear that the energy was guiding me in a different direction. Would I push through to stick with my plan? Or would I go with the flow of the energy?
I chose to flow. The result? The technology upgrade that I’d set aside (Muse says ‘avoided’!) for some time is now complete, opening the way for greater ease in several other activities and plans. The learning curve I’ve avoided doesn’t seem as steep as I’d feared. And I’m much more at ease.
Letting go, allowing, flowing with the energy in these daily events, places where often we may not recognize the presence of a choice point, become my doorways to listening more deeply to self and to all of life, especially the thriving life that surrounds me in this sacred land I inhabit. Relating to the details of life in flow rather than control seems to be an indication that Nature has much to share. An invitation for me to simply listen.
Could this be a tiny step on the path to deepening my kinship with all Life, choosing to flow with rather than control Life that is not mine to control? Perhaps a bit more uprooting is underway…
The Season’s First Morning Fire