Spring Has Sprung

Ahhhh...there is nothing like escaping the delayed spring of the north with a long, family-centered weekend in southern climes.

I was so blessed, and found myself ensconced with both kids, my sisters and their families for a belated Pesach seder and brief interlude in the sun. Amidst the reconnections and familial sharing, I embraced the opportunity to sit amongst the cypress and the lake creatures and soak in the peaceful and rejuvenating energies that are found in the sound of calling birds, leaping fish, and the gentle lapping of the water against the dock and shore. As always seems to happen, my meditation in that environment was more expansive, deeper...and I left feeling clearer, lighter.

And more than that: I found myself connecting the dots between myself, my life...ALL of our lives...and the circle of life, visible right there in front of me. Beyond the more obvious ones... (cue overture to The Lion King.)

It was in the knees. The cypress knees.

For the uninitiated, cypress trees are true swamp beings...growing ever so slow, patient, and having to regularly adapt to ever changing conditions: dry, damp and mucky, deep underwater.

Adaptive; as I must be.

As I meditated and explored along the edge of the lake, I became increasingly drawn to the sheer audacity of these little "knees." How precarious their birth, their very existence. Little nuggets in the slime - sometimes left submerged for months, sometimes high and dry, with only the occasional rain dampening their beds. I was struck by their persistence, their patience. Whatever the conditions, they marshall and use the resources available to them. Using the drought to develop stronger, deeper roots, the influx of the waters to grow bigger, taller - and utilizing the sun's warmth and the process of photosynthesis to eventually tower over the shoreline.

As I walked, I reveled in the parallels that abounded.

Times of emotional, spiritual drought; needing to find the patience to dig deep, conserve when necessary; and then soaking up the lessons, drinking thirstily, when the floodgates open and a tide of light and understanding flows in and encompasses me. Knowing that both the dark and the light - the drought and the flood - the yin and the yang - ALL are parts of the same moment, the same energy/matter, the same NOW.

In the space of only a few feet, it was possible to see the full spectrum of possibility. Dusty dry the closer to shore one looked, gave way slowly to damp and moist, then dark with muck and the rising waters...green shoots beginning to propagate hungrily, the closer to the damp one moved...until the roots were submerged, and the knees were forced to grow up and out of the waters.

"What a roller coaster their lives must be," I thought.

I've been feeling much the same roll and pitch of change - powerful-seeming battles within, as I have delved deeper and deeper into meditation and mindfulness. Facing what is 'real' and what is 'reel' in my life...and how I handle the intersections.

One of my teachers posted today, "Real Life or Reel Life .. Which Movie are You Watching?With Awareness.. you have the right to Learn you canChoose The Movie!" So true.

As part and parcel of my journey towards greater mindfulness, I have found myself, more and more frequently, laughing with amusement as I watch and listen to myself. What was once oblivious action/reaction is coming around. Not perfectly. Not always. But now, even when I fall into old patterns and habits - I SEE it - am AWARE of it - HEAR my words, and more often than not, am able to make the adjustments, so that instead of closing off to opportunity, I am wide wide open to all possibility.

I am more likely to lean forward, leap the fence, take the risk.

Do I still beat myself up, talk trash about myself to myself?

Yes, unfortunately, I do. Because it's a process, not a magic potion or pill. And, like everything worth having/being: it takes time and patience and the setting of  true intention.

Which means never giving up on myself, OR the process. Never ever.

So, this Spring of 2013, I am setting some firm intentions, I am leaping over walls and into the maelstrom of whatever is on the other side. I am committed to being present in everything I do and say and trusting in the embrace of what is NOW.

I am grateful beyond words for the teachers who have entered my life - Candace and Lesley and Liz...and indeed...as I move deeper, I am understanding that there are actually teachers all around (and within) me - bringing gifts, bearing insights and love and sharing - all of which sustains me, and helps me see more clearly my own path and how to in return, share the light that has been lit within me, with others.

Whether through this calling that I have always felt, in the theater...or indeed, through some as yet undisclosed medium...I simply know that there is an awakening and a power birthing within me that will continue shining out, ever brighter as I continue my own growth and reaching out.

And so. Time to shake up my world. Again. In two days, I will be on a plane, on my way to Bali.

When the idea of me going on this trip was first broached, last September, I was incredulous. The cost. The time. I have no job. I just didn't see how it could possibly happen. I heard, "Take the leap." "Risk the impossible and make it possible." I put myself on the list, and spent the next several months panicking and working on convincing myself that I had to somehow get out of it, that it wouldn't couldn't shouldn't work for me to go.

At the same time, I was already feeling disconcerted, unsettled: something had happened to me at the Foundation NYC class taught by Candace Silvers, but I couldn't figure out what that was...I felt like I was walking along ice sheet, or a ship rolling on the high seas - unsteady, unclear, traveling along sometimes troubled, sometimes weirdly calm waters. I was adrift, that much I knew; my line had been cast off from the dock and I was at sea.

One day, on my FB newsfeed, I noticed that a woman who had been in the September class with me, mentioned getting together with another woman from the class - one of Candace's designated fellow teachers, and a woman I had also spoken with/written to after September's class. I reached out, and so began regular sessions, where weekly, some of the tangled thoughts began to unravel and I slowly began to get a sense of what was going on internally for me...and more importantly - the possibilities of what living in the Now allows and how to continue following this path of continued awakening.

I am leaping, diving, dancing into whatever shall be, with an open heart and letting go of mind and ego.

Spring has, indeed, sprung.

And I can't wait to see what blossoms!