It is the day after a violent sleet-snow blizzard, and it is utterly quiet.
I breathe in the stillness, and appreciate how nature has settled into a silent reverie.
In stark contrast to yesterday’s bedlam. the snow is a meditation of white, wonder, and awe.
It feels like everything is at ease.
Yesterday, I was standing in this very same spot, as the 50 mph winds howled with what felt like menace. The sleet was beating on my face relentlessly. The road disappeared and left behind a flurry of disorientation.
Today, I settle in, too, and as I do, I begin to take in the beauty of the landscape.
I often fail to appreciate the depth of beauty in winter, but today it is undeniable. The subtle shades of browns and greys lend a complexity to the land that takes my breath away.
The variety of shapes, colors, and textures, in the most ordinary of landscapes, is stunning.
It is like all of nature’s winter beauty has come out to show itself, after being in tumult, and hiding, yesterday.
Nature is such a lesson in impermanence.
It is also a reminder of cycles.
Like nature, we all live in natural cycles of waxing and waning. Our own creativity consists of bursts of activity, and then quiet, dormancy, incubation.
I am reminded of how I often expect myself to just keep going at a steady pace. This determination to keep plodding on is an unrealistic, and unfair, expectation. Nature teaches us this.
As I walk along in the calm tranquility, I wonder: what would be possible if I learned to sense the ebb and flow of my own natural rhythms, and, even more importantly, I respected them?
What would it be like for you, if you respected your natural rhythms?
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