Change

The leaves are at peak in southern Vermont! I happened to have a session in person in my home office, and I was delighted to be able to drive up the mountain to see the Green Mountains all red and gold. It's amazing how nature puts on a show before the sudden change to sticks, snow, and stillness.

Life is like that sometimes, isn't it! Change comes with a big performance. Sometimes it's beautiful, like the mountains in the fall. Sometimes it's harrowing and it feels like we'll never get back to our center. We can never know exactly what the change will be when we're still inside it.

I've been thinking about this idea of change and finding center. How do you find your center when the boat keeps rocking? For me, I always come back to spiritual practice. That's my center. For others, it might be something else, like being in nature or making music. I don't know that it matters what it is, so long as it is something. What's the thing you keep coming back to, year after year, as your anchor?

The word anchor has come up for me in journeys a few times over the past six months or so. It's interesting, and it gives me a lot to think about. What good is finding center if you can't stay centered? What anchors you? For me, again, my spiritual practice keeps me from becoming unmoored. That doesn't mean I'm perfect at staying consistent, especially when I'm busy. But I don't think that's a bad thing. What use is an anchor, except for a ship that can set sail? Being centered is a process, not a destination. We live through change after change, always, hopefully, finding our center again.

Nurture

I'm back from my annual trip to Chincoteague, a barrier island of the Virginia coast. The neighboring island, Assateague, is uninhabited by humans, but is home to two herds of wild horses. I took this picture last week of a mare and her foal. This trip at the end of summer, before the onslaught of events that fall brings, has become a welcome period of rest for me. It led me to think this week about rest and nurture.

Rest isn't always restorative. The extent to which we restore ourselves during periods of rest is connected to nurture. What leads you to feel held? What around you brings you a sense of support? We know that when we work with spirits we are never really alone. Yet asking for nurture and support is hard for many of us. Sometimes it feels so foreign that it doesn't even come to mind. When is the last time you asked for restoration? When is the last time you sought out your own healing?

It's a hard thing. Our culture pushes us to keep moving, keep doing, keep achieving. The idea of rest seems like something we have to sandwich in between all the other items on our to-do lists. But rest is a necessity, as is support. Sometimes we have to learn to be still before we can sense the support that is available. By slowing down and building relationships with the unseen world, we can shift our understanding of support, nurture, and rest.

Gratitude for the hard stuff

Gratitude has been on my mind, particularly gratitude for the hard stuff. It's easy to stop in the midst of a beautiful landscape and feel awe. It's a lot harder to give thanks for things that are painful, or that dash our plans against the rocks, or that knock us off our center.

One of the great gifts of shamanism in my life is looking for the teaching in any situation. I don't mean from a place of magical thinking, where everything that happens carries some secret message. I mean thinking of life as a perpetual teaching, where every situation contains the potential for learning and growth. Shamanism certainly isn't the only avenue to this mindset, but it's what brought me here. I still get frustrated, I still dig in my heals and ball up my fists and shout "no" in my mind. But after I give myself space for feelings, I can take a breath and ask where the opportunity lies.

This is gratitude for the hard stuff. When it's hard to find the teaching myself, I ask my spirits about it. I look for where I can say "thank you." Sometimes life is really hard. Sometimes gratitude is "thank you for this hard thing, that took me out of the path of something even harder." Sometimes it's "thank you for giving me the strength to get through this." Sometimes it's "thank you for being here with me." Shamanism isn't an easy path, nor is life. We can still take responsibility for how we work with the hard things.

Are there opportunities for gratitude in your life that you aren't seeing?