Listening to Spring, Listening to Hope

How quietly the earth breathes forth new life. 

I am listening. 

I am listening to the seeds breaking open, 

to roots growing strong beneath the ground, 

to green shoots rising up from winter wombs. 

I am listening. 

I am listening to the forest filling up with song. 

I am listening to the trees filling up with leaves.

I am listening. 

I am listening to the sky with its many changing moods, 

to flashes of lightning, peals of thunder, 

to opening buds and greening grass. 

I am listening to the breaking forth of light 

in the vestibule of dawn. 

I am listening to the freshness of the morning.

I am listening. 

This is a beautiful description of Spring, which here in the Piedmont is splashing across winter's tattered brown canvas in welcome hues of vibrant yellow and delicate pink. Finally, after a long gray winter, there is color appearing here and there, rising from the darkness of waiting as this week’s Spring Equinox ushers in the season of growing light and warmth. 

It is also a beautiful description of the healing nature of grief. The growth and renewal that is possible even in the seemingly endless darkness of utter devastation. The insight, compassion, connection, love, clarity and personal power that emerges from that barren ground, that darkest of soils. For more than 20 years I have listened to grief, and I hear what Macrina Wiederkehr hears as she listens to Spring: 

seeds breaking open 

roots growing strong beneath the ground

green shoots rising up from winter wombs 

opening buds and greening grass

Yes, there is breaking — unbearable, overwhelming, meaningless, paralyzing breaking. And there is breaking open, like a seed, something new emerging and growing as the husk is split and shed.

When we are breaking, we need safety, shelter, rest, understanding, time to comprehend the enormity of loss, time to adjust to an unwanted new reality and to begin healing. When we are breaking open, we need to pay attention to what is emerging, carefully tending our new tendrils, patient with the slow uneven pace of growth, trusting the life force stored in the seed, trusting the roots to their underground work.

As Spring arrives, you may be experiencing both of these aspects of grief, confused by the tug of war between pain and possibility, between wanting to retreat and wanting to emerge. As the pandemic itself enters a more hopeful season of greater social possibility, you may be weary of isolation yet reluctant to reengage with a bigger, faster world. You may be eager for something new yet afraid to leave what feels safe and familiar, fearful of the unknown.

Most likely, you are realizing that you are changed. And feeling somewhat unsteady in this new self. After a year of bearing your personal loss within the losses of a global pandemic, you are not who you used to be. You may be confused about who you are now and struggling to imagine who you will be when this is “over." You may see nothing but bare dirt or a tangle of weeds in your garden patch. You may see green shoots emerging but have no idea of how to care for them, unable to picture what they will grow to be.

In such times, listen. Listen to Spring, trusting in what it has to tell you, the ancient story of renewal. In those liminal moments when you sense yourself emerging from the darkness but cannot yet see clearly, trust this season of growing light. Trust the innate power of the seed; trust your own slow unfurling. Trust what I trust for you: that the heart that breaks can also break open.

Find the seed 

at the bottom of  your heart 

and bring forth 

a flower.

~Shigenori Kameoka~

Listening to Spring (excerpts) by Macrina Wiederkehr 

https://healthyspirituality.org/finally-march-im-listening-spring/

Photo credit: Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash

Listening to Autumn: Finding Balance

Autumn is slipping through summer’s branches
and I am listening.
I am listening to the dying
flowing forth from autumn’s being.
I am listening to the life
hidden in the dying.

I am listening.

We are swamped in loss and it just keeps coming: a pandemic with no end in sight, wildfires ravaging land and lives, devastating storms churning the seas, a beleaguered nation more than ever in need of one another yet divided in increasingly drastic ways. All of this in addition to the very personal losses each one of us is already struggling to bear. When so much of life has changed, when so much that we hold dear is gone or threatened, how is it possible to have any hope, much less see that there is “life hidden in the dying”?

In a world that feels so off-balance, I am pausing to note this week’s autumn equinox, a moment when the world is actually in balance. On September 22, just about the time you might be nursing a morning cup of coffee in this part of the world, the sun is directly above the Equator, making day and night equal in length. In our northern hemisphere, this is the beginning of fall, a season of dying; in the southern hemisphere, the beginning of spring, a season of life reborn. 

Hold that image in mind for a moment: the sun poised above opposing but connected hemispheres, shining equally on each side. Balancing darkness and light, uniting loss and renewal. Illuminating the “life hidden in the dying” — the coexisting opposites that together form a whole world, the planet that is our home. 

As a grief counselor, it strikes me that this is one of the constant challenges of loss — finding our balance among the confusing opposites that form our new world, often a world we did not want or choose. This is what I call learning to live with “the bothness” of conflicting thoughts and emotions, honoring each one (no matter how uncomfortable) and allowing them to coexist because together they tell the truth of our new life. 

Perhaps you have experienced this “bothness”:

• as a caregiver, wishing for the suffering to end while desperately wanting more time together

• after the death of someone you love, yearning to be normal again while feeling this is betrayal of that love

• in the midst of grief, feeling lonely yet no desire to be social

• in an unhealthy relationship, feeling you are right to set healthy boundaries yet wrong not to keep trying 

• when an unhealthy relationship ends, confused that you can miss someone who hurt you so badly 

• in this troubled time, feeling deeply grateful for your personal wellbeing yet deeply uncomfortable with your relative ease in contrast to others’ suffering

• even in life changes that you choose and orchestrate, acutely missing what you have chosen to change

Our culture prefers to keep things simple, assigning black-and-white, either-or values to thoughts and emotions. We are steeped in a legalistic, argumentative, right-or-wrong, you-or-me way of approaching life — and one another. Our impatient society highly encourages and values multi-tasking but certainly does not encourage “multi-emoting.” We are pressured to feel or think only one thing, and to dismiss anything else as unworthy.

To find our balance when loss throws us off-balance, we need to accept and value our multi-emoting. We need to be like the sun at the equinox, shining the light of our awareness (mind, heart, and spirit) on the opposites that make up the whole of our experience, trusting in the hard-earned wisdom of the whole rather than the short-cut convenience of the either-or. We find balance by allowing ourselves to think and feel what seem to be opposites but turn out to be complementary — essential pieces that fit together to form our truth. A truth that is uniquely our own, and uniquely healing.

I invite you to begin by listening to autumn. What do you hear?

I am listening to the song of transformation,
to the wisdom of the season,
to the losses and the grieving,
to the turning loose and letting go.
I am listening to the surrender of autumn.

I am listening.

Excerpts from the poem Listening to Autumn by Macrina Wiederkehr

Entire poem: https://www.annsplace.org/new-page-1

Photo credit: David Monje on Unsplash