 It took me a while to slow down long enough to not only recognize, but appreciate, the great order to the universe. For a long time, I thought I was unique, apart from, separate, different. I lived my life according to my own rules, controlling and manipulating to have the world work as I thought it should. Of course, it never did, and I’d be left feeling hurt, lost, depressed, and angry. I was either mad or depressed for most of my life. I knew the sun came up every day and set every evening. I was aware of weather patterns and seasons. I recognized there was a high tide and a low tide. I knew the earth and solar system ran on some kind of power to make all these things happen. But I never saw myself as part of it.
It was when I had lived in anger and pain long enough, when I had created my own world of chaos and destruction, when I had tried over and over to set things right and was met with continued failure, that I finally started analyzing the Universal order with more curiosity. Somehow, the Universe kept moving forward. The earth kept revolving around the sun. The moon kept revolving around the earth. The Santa Ana winds came every fall. June was always gloomy. The trees always started blooming again. The hummingbirds all started coming out each February. The moon would be full every 28th day. I could count on these things. They were unmovable. I started to appreciate their consistency. I realized that all these things would carry on if I were on this planet or not. I, no matter how hard I had tried to fool myself throughout my life, was not running the show. Even more, I realized this outside force that was taking care of the rest of nature was taking care of me as well. I realized that I AM nature. I am a part of this great tapestry of life. I’m not apart from it at all. My life is woven into the very fabric of the Universe. How assured I could be realizing that to the animals of the air, water, and earth, I belong. I am one with all of it. And whatever is running this whole thing has got me as well. I don’t have to fight anymore. I go with the flow, knowing that nature will take its course. Yes, there is destruction in nature. There is violence. There is brutality. But there is also the unstoppable force of life. With every forest fire, isn’t there a brand new forest that begins to grow from the released seeds? With every hurricane, is there not plant life that thrives from the blowing of seeds and saturation of rain? Even concrete poured to cover the earth still bears dandelions in its cracks. Life is unstoppable. There is the never-ending process of death and life, chaos and order, destruction and benefit. Is it not the same way in our own lives? If we look hard enough we can always see the good that came from the darkest part of our lives. But we must choose life. We can’t actively block it with our own ideas of running the show. We submit to life. We submit to the natural order of things. We accept. We adjust. It’s not the strongest that survive. It’s the most adaptive that survive. Life comes. We let it. We adjust. I stop trying to control life. It is my place to adapt, not control. That is the natural order of things. That is my place in the world. |