Nature’s Lesson

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over it became a butterfly.

I allowed myself these past few days to dip into negativity.    Of course, when it happens, I defend the dip as if it stands in absolute truth.   Except, the problem with this insistence on being right, it keeps me in the dark, stumbling, anxious, afraid to look at another possibility.

I’m not sure why I was so worked up, but over time I have learned the reasons for struggles are not always clearly evident.  On Sunday, a little voice suggested a swim, and after resisting the idea for several minutes, I decided to do it.  I’m glad I did.  Something about the water, the light filtering through the windows, and feeling as if I am surrounded in an angel’s halo.  Like painting and gardening, it is a form of meditation.

Later, I headed to the nursery.  I bought perennials and shrubs and then tended to the garden, preparing for its emergence from the winter.  Yes, winter.   We are having one in southern California, if rather late.  Don’t laugh my East coast friends.  I realize winter here is very different there.

While gardening I’m quite amazed by the evidence that there is a creative force at work in nature.  I can see how the plants get quiet for a time, but I can also see their re-emergence – such as pods and plump limbs and encased blooms about to spring forth.    I remember when my husband looked at the crape myrtle and suggested it was dead.  I told him it’s not dead, it’s deciduous, deciduous being the falling off before the re-bloom.

Give up I could, but when I look at the Iceberg rose or a Shasta daisy about to bloom, I say forget about it!  The birch appears to be peeping from its pods, ready to say:  let’s go!  The hummingbird sits rather proudly at that top, signaling the change.  It talks to me quite often as I make the rounds.

Okay, I think.   I can do this thing called life. The negativity dissipates. I tackle the angel garden.  My limbs feel achy, yet I love the moment of creating on a larger canvas and it keeps me going.  Through it all I realize I shouldn’t be dismayed.  I’m doing life’s dance.  Sometimes you fall, but you also get up.  Sometimes the body aches, but if you keep moving, you get beyond it.

Don’t give up.  Nature doesn’t.  In the “death” nature ultimately rebounds.  It’s evident everywhere, in the boundless color of the garden, in a tree’s fruit, in a sky so blue, in the busy actions of birds preparing a nest.    If you doubt, think again.  Life lives on.  So do you.