I love how January and Tamara, without prior speaking can so often happen on the same page!
Welcome to Change week and the perfect mascot of its message:
Tree
by January Handl
I saw you in the bare bones of winter
Your rough-hewn skin still clothed in moss and lichen
Your imperfect symmetry stark and clearly
Reflecting how you have grown where you are rooted
Your naked arms reached upwards towards
The weak winter sun
Your storm exposed roots sought the stability
In the deep hubris and rock of your mother
I heard you silent in your slumber
Dreaming dreams of what my mind cannot fathom
With only the small brown birds to decorate your branches
In constant movement
I saw you in springtime
Sudden splendor of green bud and white blossom
Taking turns along the forks of growth
Spiraling from the inside out
Toward the expansive creation you felt as
Forever yearning
I smelled the sweet fragrance of your lure
To others, who are still you in different form
Come home to make love to your excitement
The pent-up energy of your sleep
Brought forth in abundance that humbles and thaws
The frozen heart of winter’s quiet
I heard the rapture of the bird and beast as they
Celebrated the vibrancy of newness at your feet
I saw you heavy in summer’s heat
With a fullness of creation’s calling
The fruiting of long-ago planted seeds
Seeking a beginning where none truly exists
I heard your beckoning to the hungry,
Self-consuming planet
Your offering of exchange
Your wakened self stood in contentment,
Wise waiting, watched for the multitudes
Melting into singularity
I saw you in the red-cheeked autumn
With the show of color and dance of descent
That heralded the mock-death yet to come
Once again to plainly show how you
Lean toward wind and water’s insistence
And light’s laughter and love still
Stretching your limbs
I felt your sleepiness after summer’s completion
And heard your longing for slumber’s dreams
As the contraction and inwardness
Asked surrender to the greater goodness of the one
I saw you outside the circle
Silent sentinel of what is
I saw you within the circle
Holding space, bearing sustenance
Reflecting calm harmony
I saw you as the circle
Made of nothing
Yet encompassing all things
A tree understands change. It knows, unlike us, that nothing ever stays the same. People however often resist this inevitable fact. We get comfortable with what is. We try to dig in, ignore or close our eyes to what is always happening. We let similarities engulf and pretend that things are still the same. Our families, our relationships, our homes, our meals…our jobs, our point of views, our country, our planet. All of it is always and forever changing.
This week our Bliss Initiative is to catch change happening. Notice it. Invite it and let it’s miracles be shown to you.
Do not resist, it comes anyway.
The choice is in how we choose to greet it. I for one say welcome. Thank you for letting me join the great circle. Thank you for the chance to create and grow anew. Welcome.
CHANGE – To become different; a transformation or modification; alteration
What change will you be welcoming?
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Tamara and January are here each Monday to help set the mood for the week!
Tamara Magnitsky
My mission is fulfilling a lifelong desire to be a creative professional making a positive difference in the lives of those I encounter. Photographing unique personalities in a fun and relaxed environment. To challenge myself creatively, listen deeply and take a damn good picture.
See Tamara’s photography on her Facebook Page.
January Handl
January Handl is first and always a mother, has been a preschool teacher and parent educator for 25 years. She is currently lives in Aptos California AND simply in awe of existence.
She calls her photo “hot tub bliss” 🙂
I have often wondered why, when we know one of the only things we can guarantee that each child/person will experience is change (and loss and grief)…why is it our “curriculums” never offer an in-depth opportunity to learn about that? Through our own experiences and those of the beings around us, and the variety of responses to change, perhaps all those spiritual lessons on impermanence could be part of every beings’ life’s lessons- beginning in preschool, and lasting our lifetimes.
And when we can notice our responses, withholding judgement, with curiosity, perhaps the deeper learning about letting go, stepping forward, supporting each other’s processes could be viewed with relish and excitement.
You are so right January!! It is as if we create curriculums that hide change even though it is the most prevalent thing in the universe. We are taught “truths” that at the time of our learning seem fixed (world is/is not flat) but then we spend whole lives defending a constancy that just isn’t real.
If we could reflect on and celebrate all the types of change (Loss and grief included!) from a young age I think the world would be a much different place!
I most certainly agree about children being taught how to deal with change, Loss and grief does not have to mean a major event but it can still affect them. My daughter pined for a lost teddy bear!
My youngest son is affected by Fragile X Syndrome, which comes with various autistic type symptoms. One is that he is averse to change and if someone leaves his life he grieves for them. His reactions to even the smallest change was problematic and anxiety causing when he was young. Even the change of getting in the car and then getting out of it again. Leaving friends to go to a new school was really traumatic.
We started learning techniques to help him cope with change when he was young and understanding teachers would follow through with this. We still need to use certain techniques these days but we now mostly do this by talking about the problem.
Although he does have special needs it has made me aware that all children need some help coping with changes even if they are not, to an adult mind, serious.
I love the poem but now I feel a little guilty as I am celebrating the chopping of a couple of huge, non native, pine trees in a neighbors garden. We live on a hill and have wonderful views – apart from these two trees that were blocking about a third of it.
I am willing to accept changes in my life but do not go out seeking them these days. I did that far too much when I was dissatisfied with life.