Spirited

I know, I know, it’s been awhile.  Where *did* February go?  Or March?  All a blur to me!

I couldn’t believe my eyes.  For years I had come to this place in the early spring to take in the bluebells.  Vast numbers of them, all blooming at the same time.  Just beautiful, and took my breath away, a natural wild place just steps away from a busy intersection.  I felt I’d encountered Mother Nature herself here.  When the lilacs started blooming, I’d rush to this place to take it all in.

Only now I was looking at a parking lot.  I was angry at first, then confused, then determined to save some of the remaining bluebells.  How could they have done this?  Didn’t they know what they had? After returning with a shovel to rescue the plants who clearly were going to be wiped out (see below), and replanting it in my little garden, I started thinking about the whole process of change, and how it does sometimes catch us off guard, and we rush to preserve the beauty we once knew, but it’s gone and it will never be the same.

Our lives are sometimes like this.  We anticipate something going the way we always thought they would, or wished they would, like my encounter with the bluebells.  Only sometimes it’s bigger, we have a habit, behavior, or relationship that has served us well, and all of a sudden it isn’t working anymore.  We may not have been aware of how ingrained or entrenched it was in our lives.  Something happens, and it isn’t there or is new and unchangeable or unavoidable.  There is darkness for awhile, as if someone turned the lights out in a windowless room. We cannot comprehend or guess how an event will turn out, or what life lessons there are to explore in this situation.

Run over by a truck

Sooner or later, most of us choose to deal with whatever is now added or changed or gone and determine how to go forward.  We begin to explore how to create the newness this change requires of us.  Many people lean on their understanding of a Higher Power – Spirit, Mother Nature, God -  as a part of this moving forward.

Is the change a bad thing or a good thing?  Is this even a valid question?  If you believe, as I do, that Spirit is constantly conspiring for our good, why judge at all?  The Buddhist practice of non-attachment comes to mind.  It just is the way it is.  How to move forward? What can we do?

Let’s look at this more closely, with our hearts open wide.  Is it a different story?  Is there more than one way to look at this?  Where is Spirit in this?  Or will we stay wounded?  It is entirely our choice.  Let me repeat that.  It is entirely our choice.  When your heart is open wide, it wants to choose Love.  What does that mean?

I applied this to my situation with the bluebells, and opened my heart to see what else was there, what had I missed in my first assessment?

Yes, there was a parking lot.  It is the new Coralville trail parking lot off Camp Cardinal road in Coralville, Iowa, USA.  I love to ride my bike, and this trail is particularly pretty in the spring with beautiful trees, moss, May apples, ferns, natural phlox.  Having a trailhead for this bike trail is a good thing, it will keep bikers from having to cross the busy road to find a restroom or a drink of water.  Perhaps, I thought, they did not know about the bluebells.  Clearly the construction had started before the bluebells bloomed.

So I began to look around.  I saw a few bluebells, valiantly blooming despite being dumped in a big pile of dirt or run over by truck tires.  I felt sad.  They seemed to scream at me, please save me, please save me.  Was that my own voice, wanting to preserve what I thought I had lost?   Or Spirit telling me I might be able to save some of these plants?  This one clearly was history if I didn’t do something.

Again, I returned to an open heart and continued looking around the construction area.  It really did seem as if some of them wanted to be saved, to be loved again, allowed to spread out.  So, I took this one home and it is planted in my shade garden.  I continued my search, as we must do to move forward.  Was there more to see?

There is always more to see!  An open heart allows us to see so very much more!  And in the distance, far off, I caught some Hope.  A light, shimmering under the trees.  My heart leaped!  They weren’t all gone!  There were some left!  I was SO HAPPY!  This patch of bluebells could start a new blanket of blue beauty.  This picture doesn’t do it justice, just think of 50 times as many flowers in an undisturbed area, but I’m happy for what is there.

Yes, I would call the authorities to try and let them know these bluebells are there.  And next year I will certainly check on their progress.

An open heart cannot stay wounded.  Spirit will always give us Hope.  I was so wrapped up in my initial reaction I was not looking for signs that Spirit was at work within my heart.  Anger, fear, confusion, doubt – these are all emotional states that obscure the inner workings of the heart.  They are part of life, they will always be with us.  It’s our choice to look within and follow where we are led, trusting that no matter how lost we feel, we will get through them and perhaps even be led to new beginnings and a new life.  These movements of Spirit can be very small, or very big.  The loss of this natural place was not a loss at all, but a change.  A change that will benefit a lot of people accessing the trail, and perhaps next spring more of those people will enjoy what I love about this area in the spring, the blue carpet of loveliness.

And thanks for all the thoughtful discussion on my ongoing mission to change Holiday 2012 into something more closely aligned with my own beliefs.  I really appreciate it.  Am coming across some interesting ideas, including having participants bring a gift for a specific charity of my choosing, like Domestic Violence.  I would love to be able to benefit someone besides myself and all the other people who really don’t want or need  or can buy for themselves what I’m giving them!   Think about it for your own family.

Blessings to you all.
Deb