Published Book or Work by:
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Nature’s lessons on acceptance and patience
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| Published by Tampa Bay Newspapers |
| Feb. 15, 2007 |
| ISBN: TBNWeekly.com |
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| Hold on to the past and smile
for the future. |
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Build me a fire of hope and peace. Take a moment, close your eyes.
I can see a storm gathering at the entrance to the bay, rolling together gray
swirls underneath a lime-gray sky. Sea birds race each other for shelter.
The bay waters spread out like smooth, silver sheets of mercury unaware of the
distance turmoil. A lizard sunning itself beside me takes no notice of the
intensifying updrafts. The palm leaves rise and fall in an uneven breeze song.
Nostrils spread open allowing in the welcomed fresh, moist air. Take a deep breath.
Hold it in. Clouds tumble slowly approaching the shore. Ah, the rains … cool
my skin, make rain ringlets with my hair, tastes clean, fresh upon my lips becoming
a part of me. Droplets fall from my fingertips returning to the sands, me a part of
the earth.
Under a full moon, I spoke to an Elder and expressed how I would miss her if she
was not making this walk on this earth beside me. She responded.
“Doesn’t really matter, dear one, I will still be with you in spirit,
arms around you. Hold your loved ones so that their essence, their fingertips are
remembered in detail as when they touched your face. Hold on to the past and smile
for the future. Is all one, baby girl.”
Later that week another friend shared with me she had been diagnosed with a
terminal illness. I asked of her, “What can I do?” I’m the kind of
person that feels there is a solution for everything and if I try hard enough I can
hold back the storms, believing that somehow together we can find a reason, an
answer, a cure. My friend reached out gently touching my hand and said,
“Nothing.” She saw the fixer’s reaction. She went on, “We will
do the same thing as if I was not ill. We will take it one day at a time. We will
love each other one day at a time. No matter what we do we can only fight one flame
at a time.”
I knew she was right. Nature teaches us this. All those clichés for
example: Don’t paddle upstream, don’t go against the tide … you know
… it is that rebellious characteristic some of us have. Let me at it, I can
make it right, but sometimes trying to make it right makes it worse. Sometimes
“hands off” lets nature take its course. I give in, I submit that I
can’t solve everything. We can’t put a halt to impending storms, but we
can enjoy the rains. The winds will prevail. Nature teaches us lessons of patience
and acceptance.
Subhuti, how does a person first feel a need to save beings? He becomes aware
of that kind of wise insight which shows him beings as on their way to destroying
themselves. Great compassion then takes hold of him. He surveys the world, and what
he sees fills him with agitation. So, such a person radiates great friendliness and
compassion over all these beings and gives his attention to them, thinking, “I
would like to save these beings, I would like to release them from all their
sufferings.” But he does not make this desire into an attachment, for even he
never turns his back on full enlightenment.– Prajnaparamita
Like prayers and fires, like sweats and songs sang, like dew turns to fog, like
rains become rivers, like smoke carried to the clouds, like the stars in your eyes
reflecting moon beams, like dreams and reality, like this one girl standing here
like a thousand before her sharing the same footsteps, same raindrops, same sand,
same river, same moon, same stars shining, same beams of eternity through someone
else’s eyes 10,000 years ago, take the storm clouds into your heart, turn them
around, let them open your windows, see into the future, see into the past, hold
the hands of both future and past.
Build me a fire of hope and peace. Lift the damp earth in cupped hands and breathe
in the scent of life’s blood. Actions, footprints, thrown stone ripples, we
are integral with all nature, all winds, all rains, all storms. “Is all one
… ” Take a joyful moment, cherish the past and smile for the future
… back to nature.
Karen can be reached at back_2nature@hotmail.com.
Copyright © 2004-2007 Karen Mitchell Tremmel, All Rights Reserved.
