Higher ground
While running the other day, I watched the birds flying near the path where I run.
I loved watching how they responded when encountering a gust of wind… they have so many choices, and you can almost feel the joy when you see one push up against the wind and climb higher in the sky with so little apparent effort.
It seems to me that I have too often missed the many dimensions presented to me in life when the wind gusts up against me.
I sometimes feel like I have to turn right or left. Or sometimes, I feel like my decisions will take me forward or backward… as if there is someplace to get to in life.
But for some reason, while running, I see that our choices also have a way of taking us to higher ground.
By higher ground, I do not mean this in a comparative way. I don’t mean that I want to go higher than you, or him, or her. I mean - a higher place for my own soul. A place where my soul sees the bigger picture. A view from which my fears and anxieties fall into place, and the puzzle of life makes sense.
The choices that take us higher aren’t always apparent or obvious. In fact, they can be invisible. I believe you just have to trust your instincts sometimes.
I have never surfed, but I am guessing it is a little like surfing… you just have to have a feel for your life, for the flow of events around you… and when the time is right, you just push or let go or lift up… whatever it is, you know it when you hit it just right.
When describing this to a friend of mine, she suggested it is like flying a kite. You do not control the wind, but you learn how to allow your kite to soar based on a few simple movements.
This is my challenge - the new game in my life.
I cannot expect others in my life to change their ways or methods. It doesn’t matter how right or wrong their behavior or choices seems to be. Change is up to them.
And just as I cannot change their methods, I can neither predict the push or pull I will feel as a result of the choices of others. The world will always push and pull at me. I can react. Or, I can respond. This is the choice that makes all of the difference in the world.
When the wind gusts up against the birds I see flying near the path where I run, it does not seem to me that they are reacting to the changes in the force and direction of the wind. It feels to me that they are responding. They are one with it, and use it to go where they want.
But it is not only the world around me — and the behavior and choices of others that present this choice to me. I am up against many of my own judgments and assumptions about people and life… which is another way of saying that I am up against my judgments and assumptions about myself. The world outside is a reflection of the world inside. They are one reality split into the appearance of duality.
As I reflect on these things, I find myself more open to responding, rather than reacting. This openness brings with it a greater openness to the life that is going on around me all of the time. And with that comes a far greater openness to my own future.
Today marks the first day in a long time that I feel truly open to my own future. I find myself now thinking ahead in a far more open, loving, and joyful way… rather than in a fearful anxiety-ridden way.
This is significant.
Like that beautiful bird I witnessed while running on the path… that strong looking black bird with the bright red patches on its shoulders… it took off from the thinnest of flowers and flew into the sky, and when the wind gusted up against him, he effortlessly turned right into the gust and climbed ever higher.
What a view he must have had of that beautiful sunset.
