Gazing in the Mirror

March 20 - Bridges

And maybe it's the time of year,
yes, and maybe it's the time of man.
And I don't know who I am
but life is for learning.
~ "Woodstock"
lyrics by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Everything in nature tends
to equalize itself,
to keep its balance true.
~ Ernest Holmes

On my evening hike some years ago, I was contemplating the Equinox and thinking my essay would be titled Bridges. I smile at the coincidence that the Daily Guide from Science of Mind magazine for this day from 2008 was titled Bridges (12 years ago as I edit this essay)  My essays follow the Daily Guide structure in that magazine.  There is rarely anything "new" in mind or under the sun as they say. The recognition of the balance point called the Equinox between Winter and Summer or Summer and Winter is ancient.

What is different in these modern times is my global perspective on this.  In Missouri, this year we barely had any Winter and have had typical Spring rains and flooding  But on Sunday morning it could snow. The temperatures are due to drop late this afternoon and reach freezing tonight. We've had Daffodils for quite a few days and the Serviceberry and Forsythia are blooming.  Down in the field I saw tender baby green leaves. Contradictions are indicators of the climate change irregularities of our time.  And perhaps, these are only normal variations in the cycles of Nature. Back when I wrote this, I would go out listening to the breeding calls of frogs and toads as part of the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program (NAAMP conducted by the USGS) which was a national research project. Our federal government cut funding some years ago.  I sort of miss it and sort of not.  At least I know now what I hear are frogs and not insets.  The Spring Peepers have been loud and raucous. I've heard a few Southern Leopard Frogs are laughing out there but they are not yet at peak. 

On my hike through the forest when I first wrote this essay, my thoughts were moving toward the Equinox as the bridge between the two extremes, the balance point. The moon right is a perfect "half" twice a month.  How wonderful it is to feel connected to the cycles of Nature and to live so closely tied to them.  The evening I wrote this, I returned from my hike and had the rare but always happy opportunity to chat with a virtual friend who lives in India. "Good evening", I said. "Good morning", he said. Without the internet we would not even know one another is alive. He was reminding me that even as I was preparing dinner, he was preparing to leave for his work day. I gratefully recognize the planetary balance of both day and night simultaneously existing. And realizing thanks to our humanity leaving the Earth-bound state and seeing the planet from out in space we know that day and night are important only upon the planet herself. There is wholeness and balance to these divisions of light and dark. Dawn and dusk are the bridges.

I embrace a complete wholeness of natural cycles for the planet. When I wrote this, it was the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere and those in the Southern Hemisphere were celebrating the Autumnal Equinox. Here the trees are still bare, the temperatures are still fluctuating wildly and the fall leaves are still visible on the ground but the Daffodils do bravely bloom. This reality gives to me the perfect illustration of balance bridging between extremes. It can be nicely warm in Springtime, even when it is raining.  Last night, we had seasonal thunderstorms and heavy rain along with a power outage. Spring is always relentless, even if Winter is reluctant to go and fights back.

Humanity often forgets about Nature it seems. Why is it that the green world is not enough for us ? One of the earliest of the ancient stories is about the first man and the first woman living in a garden. They did not think of tending their garden as work. They were probably operating from some natural instinct to be engaged in an activity that nurtured them. Yet creeping into their awareness came an anxiety regarding mortality and maybe even a bit of evolutionary restlessness. Or was it some other climate change cycle prompting them to find a more pleasant environment ? We humans seem intent on honoring the "Harvest God" by extracting resources from the planet. Those resources are the basis of our whole economic strategy.

The cycles of Nature remind us that just as the seasons come and go so do we in human form. Thoughts of infinity and the linear world are more appealing. It is impossible to truly know where humanity is actually headed but it is more fun to theorize about that than focus on the reality that everything that lives also dies. Where do we go when we die ? I plan to go back into the Earth itself right here on our farm. I want to be buried in the soil of this forest. I don't want my "elements" preserved in an indestructible box but allowed to dissolve back into my true mother. Most humans seem unable to come to terms with their finite nature. Today, I was remembering the theme song from Woodstock – "we've got to get ourselves back to the garden". Our blood sacrifices to support the Harvest God and our wars support the corporate imperative. It all seems irrational to me. We err in that blind certainty which perpetually afflicts our affairs in destructive pursuits.

~ perspective

Our lives pass through a sequence
of cyclical changes and each new
beginning embodies some of the same
difficulties we have already experienced
before.
Our transitions are bridges based in
a necessity to adjust to change.
When everything changes radically
we must let go of whatever was
just before in order to embrace fully
what is now and is obviously going to
continue to come.
I am grateful we have bridges –
to give us not an obstacle but a path
to follow through.
The Equinox is a time for releasing
"attachments" while allowing us to
embrace change.

#autumn #balance #cycles #equinox #extremes #harvest #nature #resources #trees #war