Life is Happening Now

I think we can exhale now. Spring has sprung and every day the changes are extraordinary. In fact it seems like visible changes are occurring hourly - every time I pop out my back door or go run an errand another bush has budded, another bird has returned, another tree has blossomed and another sneeze can be heard... ahh the price of pollination. So worth it though!

And so it goes, and so it seems life imitates nature through the changes and the ups and downs. For so long nothing changes, or so it would appear, then all at once they come fast and furious. Of course things are always changing, even when we don't see it.  So much must occur underground before the first sprout can shoot up. So much goes on inside before we see the evidence of real change.  Keep the faith. Carry on.

But some things we want to stay the same and we find ourselves resisting the changes that we see - our children growing up so fast, routines and traditions bending and sometimes breaking completely, the feeling of getting older or noticing our parents age, watching technology transform our world and our youth. It is easy to romanticize a simpler, happier past. We don our super-powered rose colored glasses and set our fingers on cling mode as we try in vain to hold on to days gone by.

Take it from someone who used to be quite practiced in the art of looking back, resisting change by clinging to the past is just a waste of time. Instead of trying to reclaim the past, let's reclaim the now.  This moment right now is the only moment we have. It is the place where everything begins. It is the point at which we launch forward into life. Spring is such an easy time to be in the now. With evidence of life springing up all around, it is easy to take a moment to appreciate what is happening right now. To literally "stop and smell the roses" as we go through our day. Taking moments several times a day to purposefully be in the now is a great way to practice being present. Even when things aren't all butterflies and rainbows, we can appreciate what is happening without resisting it.  It takes practice but the work it takes to get to a more peaceful state of mind is so worth it...

Invictus

William Henley wrote this poem along with a collection of others from 1873-1875 while he was in a hospital due to complications from Tuberculosis of the bone. It speaks clearly of perseverance and directing one's fate. The poem was a favorite of Nelson Mandela's. He read it to inmates while he was imprisoned to help keep their/his spirits up. I read it as a reminder that no matter what we "think" we are going through; no matter how difficult the challenge appears, who we truly are can never be hurt or conquered or become less than.  We are and will always be whole.

Invictus

William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.