Tucking your body in and surrendering to the warm embrace of the sun soaked grass. Your nose catching the comforting scent of the dry, soft, grass as you roll faster and faster down the incline. Feeling the grass against your skin moments after touch as you continue gaining speed. Noticing the weight of your body thumping onto the earth, massaging your muscles. Smiling joyfully throughout, as the wind provides protection from the hot midday sun. Slowing to a stop you begin to notice the dizzy sensation preventing you from standing tall immediately. Enjoying this malaise, you sit until you can return to solid ground. Allowing yourself to rest until you are able to go back to standing tall above the calm, level ground.
Since the Ladies’ Mountain Retreat, I have been thinking about embracing the chaos of change and allowing myself to see the beauty throughout the process. In the past, I have been swept up in the chaos of major changes and fell into dark, painful places to later emerge to change. Thinking that was the only way to make progress in life, I would continue to be uncomfortable and shaken throughout change waiting for the light to come through and life to stabilize again. Recently I have been thinking about joyful change. Knowing that change is coming and preparing to meet it with joy. I wrote the above passage about rolling down a grassy hill today while thinking about changes in life. Sometimes you come to a hill in life (a crossroads): you can walk down carefully and anxiously, you can fall down resulting in pain, you can avoid it and stay where you are but never get anywhere new, or you can embrace the hill and allow yourself to just go with it and roll down. When rolling down a hill you need to trust that you are safe. You have to have faith that you will not get hurt and release to it in order to enjoy the experience. I feel like change is the same. If you release to it and allow yourself to notice and enjoy the beauty of the experience, trusting that you will not be changing forever, you can emerge happier. And sometimes after the chaos you can be a little shaken or dizzy. Allow yourself to rest until you are ready to stand again. Don’t try to get up too soon or you will fall. Just slowly add movements until you are able to stand on level ground again. I remember times when I would have just rolled down a hill and I was called by my parents to come back. If you would stand to soon, especially for someone else, you would fall. For this period in my life I feel like it is important for me not to move too quickly for others but to allow myself to take the time I need before standing tall again, otherwise, I will fall.
With hopes of joyful change,
Irene Lotus
