A few weeks ago, there was a controlled burn through the prairie at the park where we walk.
Even on our first steps from the parking lot onto the trail, the smell of char in the air was unmistakable though we had no idea where it came from. Rounding the corner from one trail to the expanse of prairie beyond it revealed the fullness of the story beginning to form in our minds.
It’s hard to describe the primal panic that can strike when the filaments of thought coalesce with the direct experience of the senses.
We stood in awe, speechless, taking in the scene.
Where once were acres of waving grasses over rolling hills, we witnessed the soot and stubble of the destruction that remained. Though we surmised the burn was a controlled one as they’ve done in years past, it was still a shock that the body experienced first as danger, then as loss, and in the tenderness of the heart, as grief.
***
A mere two weeks later, on the heels of more snow and cold, and an increasingly warm sun, we came upon the same prairie already sprouting signs of new life…
And a week after that…
…she’s sporting a whole new verdant blanket of green.
I’m noticing how equally shocking it is to see how quickly Nature rebounds. And am reminded as I stand here, that we are not separate from this grace.
We experience destruction in so many ways, through so many guises in our life experience — accidents, storms, signs of decline, a diagnosis, a divorce, a death. All expected and unexpected losses that rock our world and leave us standing on the edge of blackened landscape wondering in disbelief what could possibly come next.
What if we recognized what Nature is showing us all of the time? That the breaking down and letting go is as necessary to ushering in new life as winter is to spring, as a cracked shell is to the ushering forth of what grows within it.*
And as the burning of the prairie is to vibrant new life.
Life and death are a package deal in this human experience, ripe with paradox that we each spend a lifetime attempting to navigate; a creative tension that offers us the raw materials for our own unique growth and becoming.
None of us is immune. And each seasonal cycle, each personal cycle, gifts us the opportunity to be a student of our own experience in loss, yes, but also to begin again. And again. And again.
What in your life is being asked to be released in order to invite in the quickening energy of the season? What could you “burn” (literally write what you’re letting go of on a scrap of paper and burn it in a safe location; or figuratively rip the paper up containing your words and sprinkle it like confetti outside, or plant it in the ground…) as a ritual to signify to the Mystery that you are open and ready for what is waiting to be birthed through you in this next phase of blossoming?
As long as we draw breath, we are growing and changing. May we trust the journey we’re on to show us that all of our experience and all of who we are in it belongs. Happy Earth Day. Thanks for the reminder, Mother Nature! ❤️
*an exciting aside: a certain mama duck has returned for a second year in a row to nest in one of our flower pots! More to come…
In order to rise from its own ashes,
a Phoenix first must burn…
~Octavia Butler
An invitation…
If you’re looking for an online community space to explore your own meditation practice, I share about Spirited Meditation Circle for 2025 in this post from February: what the world needs now.
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Thanks Christy!
Such a powerful observation - and reminder. Thank you for this!!! ❤️🌱