The seasons beat the calendar to the bat. Have you noticed? Their temperatures, their smells, a few characteristic signs suddenly pop on the scene, singing “It’s summer!” or “It’s fall!”
Take the daisies, for instance. Two weeks ago, not one was in sight. But let June stick her toe in the door and the next thing you know their sunny little faces are grinning through the grasses everywhere.
So now, whether it’s official or not, something inside you knows that summer has indisputably arrived, and you, like the daisies, are alive, and glad, and free.
There’s no plush carpet here, no beige walls or polished surfaces. No sir. What you have before you is a virtual riot of gladness, an unrestrained jubilee, sprung to life all of its own accord. Kinda wild you say? Exactly. No committees, no policies, no locks, or clocks or alarms, no written plan, no codes, no outlined parking spaces. It’s nothing but rampant joy set loose and bursting with freedom. Sorta makes you want to let out a holler, kick up your heels, doesn’t it?
Stick your neck out. Even if you think that what you have to show ain’t pretty, climb out of the dark of the swamp. Bask in the warmth, in the light, in the sun. Breathe the fresh air through your nose. Let it dance through your toes. It’s sun time, fellah. Let it all hang out.
I thought I’d chat with you today about the bravery game and the unexpected gift that it brought me. The game goes like this. . .
To play, you accept the premise that anything can happen – dire things you haven’t ever entertained, even in your nightmares. But real life is like the bravery game. In it, catastrophes happen. In different times, in different ways, to different folks, suddenly the whole world is irrevocably changed,
The point of the game is to enhance your bravery. You start by asking yourself, “What’s the worst that can happen?” It’s not death. That’s for sure. There are things far, far worse. Try to imagine a real answer to that question, an answer that touches on your own pet nightmare scenario. “What’s the worst that can happen?”,
So I’ll tell you mine: It’s having the same nightmare happen to everyone at once. In it, everything and everyone you know is damaged or destroyed, but you’re still standing. Some “anything” you never expected to happen happened. (Good things happen, too, of course, all the time. As I sometime remind myself, you do have to hold open the possibility that things could turn out just fine. But that’s another story that requires a different kind of courage. What we’re talking about here is the bravery it takes to face the worst.)
The next step in this game, this process, is to ask yourself, “In the face of this stunning situation, what can I do? Who do I want to be?”
Then you do it and be it. Except you have to answer both questions first. Deciding what you can do and what kind of person you want to be, calls for choices. Look at the possibilities and pick the one that works for you. Then act the part, and keep on acting until you become who you chose to be.
As for the nightmare scenario, yours is whatever it is. The point is to face it, and decide how you will respond. Then, whatever befalls you, you’ll already know who you’re going to be, how you’re going to manage it, what attitudes and inner resources you’re going to take along. It makes you feel strong.
But it does something else, too. Something unexpected.
At least that was my experience with it today. I was driving along on a perfect late spring day, the air fresh after a morning rain and everything sparkling. The sunlight was just low enough to take on that golden not-yet-sunset sheen and was spilling long purple shadows over everything.
I was casually noticing how pretty it was, when all of a sudden I happened to notice my eyes blink. It was just a routine, automatic, eye-wetting blink, nothing special. But as I noticed it, an inner voice said, “That quickly, it can change.”
Having played the nightmare game, instead of feeling fear, I became fully alert and gave the scene my full attention. No danger was in view. Instead, the world before me was fully alive and unspeakably beautiful. And I realized that’s the case wherever we are, all the time. When you’re not afraid of unexpected change, when you already know how to respond, you’re free to see the world’s wonders.
That face before you. That familiar scene. This particular moment in time. No matter what stories you’ve built around them, imagine them suddenly demolished. Snap! In the blink of an eye. See? See how priceless they become to you? See all that they represent? Appreciate them. Wrap yourself in gratitude for the experiences they give. Because we can hold on to nothing but what our hearts and souls contain.
Besides, what’s so new about change, whether we experience it as sudden or not? Everything is changing, everything and everyone, right this very now. (It’s a big place, now. Big enough, they say, to hold everything that anyone anywhere ever imagines and more.)
If it feels like we’re all subject to some imminent cosmic convergence of events, that’s because we are. Don’t be afraid. That’s what things do here in this world. They come together and dance apart. It’s like living inside a kaleidoscope. Everything changes, all the time. Everything is in motion.
But here’s the cool thing. We have a say in the way we’ll experience and respond to change. We get to decide what we will do and who we are choosing to be. And knowing that can produce some powerful results.
I think it was Deepak Chopra who said our thoughts are like bait we toss into the cosmic soup [where infinite possibilities exist]. What you’ll reel in depends, to a great extent, on the kind of bait you toss out. I say throw some shining, wiggling hopes out here. Your best and brightest ones. And believe that the guy who’s holding the pole (That’s you.) knows exactly what he’ll do with whatever he reels in. Because he knows that anything can happen. In the blink of an eye. And he’s not afraid.
Wishing you a week in which you cannot be fazed. Forward, my brave friends!
In the middle of February when winter has long since erased all but the faintest memory of green from your mind, it’s hard to imagine that a day like this could have ever been real, or could ever come again, At best, it seems a faded dream, a dim hope, this roadside, knee deep in wildflowers and grasses, the delicate and multilayered scents drifting on warm air that’s filled with the songs of tree-hidden birds, and the trees themselves, rich with their greens, their leaves dancing in the fragrant breeze.
A day like this, which makes all the rest of them worth enduring, is a treasure, a wish granted. It calls for the opening of our hearts and our senses, for the breathing of it into our souls. May we spread our arms to welcome it, to gather the sunshine it pours down our faces and bare arms, to drink in its infinite, flowing aliveness, our spirits floating in its endless Yes.
The trail that leads to the meadow is as familiar as a lover’s face, changing with the day’s hours, with the seasons, and always holding some surprise, a new wrinkle, you might say, and yet fundamentally the same. Today it is lush with summer and taking its leisure in the warmth. The heady rush of springtime is over. Alongside the trail, summer’s work takes on an easier pace. It knows what the earth wants to grow where. It knows that it knows how to grow it. It’s done this before. So the earth relaxes into the season’s warmth and lets the light and shadows play as it steadily grows its luxuriant green, its luxuriant, healing green.
Here, in the world where time flows, not everything happens at once. The symphony has its movements, its measures. It has its rhythms and moods. Each thing unfolds according to its nature. Coming when it is meant to come; leaving when it is meant to go. Trust that. It may not always seem so, given the limitations of our view. But after sufficient seasons have passed, your heart begins to know that time has a way of doing things in exactly the right order.
Windlessly, clouds creep in from the west, their weight easily borne by the thick, dense air. In the garden, parched plants ache for rain. The trees’ spring-fresh leaves droop in the heavy stillness, praying. Finally, off in the distance, thunder rolls and all the green things hold their breath in hope and anticipation. (Please! Please!) It takes the rain a full hour to begin. But then it falls in fat, cool drops that plunk like the strings of a bass on the hosta leaves outside my open kitchen window. The fragrance of wet soil wafts through the screen and everything rises and breathes its joy.
What if you were to breathe this serenity into your heart? What if, before you spoke, before you formed a judgment or opinion, its green calm flooded your mind? What if its harmony revealed the way to peace? What if you spent this day enveloped in its sacred song, letting go, letting go?
The blackberry vines are in blossom now, their arched, thorny branches clumped in the fields and tumbling down the hill. You can see the baby berries forming in their centers, summer treats for the birds, a worthy trade for their songs. And look, little beetles are fattening themselves on the leaves beneath the blossoms. The Yes feeds the leaf-eaters, too. It denies nothing that contributes to life’s thriving. Why, the whole planet was built on its song—beetles, birds, baby berries and all.
