Now is always at the cusp of being lost

A Hit of Hope

Since I would rather roller skate with a grizzly than garden, I am particularly grateful whenever I get to enjoy someone else’s outdoor labors. Last weekend, I had the opportunity to meditate in a stunning garden replete with its very own fountain. As it had been almost 100 degrees the day before, the cool, blustery day proved a vivid reminder of how everything changes. What is will not always be.

The longer I sat there, the more aware I became of the flow—and how everything handled the flux differently.

The wind would gust, then stop, and in that absence, the burble of the fountain became clear. Its volume likely hadn’t changed at all, but the water’s small voice suddenly had the chance to be heard in the stillness and quiet. The breeze would pick back up, and the ever-moving, shimmering sheets of water would shift and change—now steady, now small, now wildly splashing into the pond below.

Next, I spied a spiderweb strung between the tips of two flowers. The thick strand managed to be both anchored and flexible as the two flowers bobbed this way and that in the shifting winds. Holding and giving. Close together. Opened wide and still holding. I thought, “This is what a healthy relationship is like.”

The blowsy field of flowers to my left danced, bowing deeply when the wind was strongest. The humble gesture was filled with buoyancy and grace, an honoring of the unseen Greater Than. In the next moment, the blossoms rose, reaching for the light. Rooted in the earth.

I breathed deeply, as everything around me moved.

Except for the ground cover. That hardly moved at all. Firmly established, it held the earth and the earth held it. Its living work was wide and slow.

In the midst of this beauty, I noticed a flare of annoyance at the traffic that rushed by behind me, but that was simply one more kind of flux. Bodies manifestly on their way. As we all are—from life to loss to beauty to death. Every human story shares these plot points.

My eyes stumbled upon a different web—a big one with a black and yellow spider sitting in the middle of it. This web had been repaired, and the seams looked like stitches from a sewing machine. In fact, the spider’s legs looked like articulated needles.

Sometimes, the work of being human is getting lost in the beauty. Sometimes, it’s letting go, into the flow that is out of our control. Sometimes, it’s seeing the webs. Where do we get caught in stickiness? What are the patterns that makes us thrash and struggle? What are the connections that matter?

To heal, to become whole, one of the things we have to do is face the damage that has been done—by others, by ourselves. We have to turn our attention to the tears in our bodies, minds, and spirits. Being present to the pain, we can set about knitting the rough edges together again.

Now is always at the cusp of being lost, and while change is constant, how we handle it is as unique as we are. Not only that, but what we do in one season of our life might be different than in another one. Let’s be honest. Some days, we might struggle hard against life, and feel like the fly. And that’s okay.

But see if you can sit. Breathe. And then move in a way that makes the most sense to you. Dance with the flow. Bow to the beautiful. Get low and grounded. Send out delicate threads of connection that might or might not last.

Regardless of how you handle the flux in your life, that garden showed me it’s hard to go wrong if you are willing to show up and do the necessary work of repair. And if you ground yourself in the good soil, it is that much easier to live light and shine.