Nature’s growing season is almost over in the Northeast. The days are getting darker. Another kind of growing season is just beginning . . . the inward kind that takes place mostly in silence and in quiet introspection.
Phrases Posted on Facebook, October 2022
What a delight when the baby first smiles, first says Mama and Dada and takes a first step. Those are WOW moments, indeed. It is only later, much later, when with a sself-knowing sigh and cautious smile we have grown to value and accept who we are that a different growth has taken place. It’s also a WOW moment though a silent one.
Did you ever consider that waiting is a kind of growing? I mean the waiting that is just simple presence . . . neither pushing for a change nor giving up on progress. I think somewhere deep down we know that being fully present without agendas is a divine state, one that takes years of growing to achieve and which also can lead to profound, necessary action.
It is one thing to expect a dawn of better times . . . that small slant of light hopefully showing up under the shades, but it is another thing to honor the dark. It has another kind of light that wraps us in mystery. In it we find ourselves as in a womb where we grow organically without self-absorption. Slowly we are given new hands and feet, new hearts and a new life.
Praise what you love. Chuck it under the chin with affection and be ready to give yourself away to it a little bit every day until there is nothing left. When what you love claims you as much as you claim it, a two-way process begins. Love always begets more love and keeps on growing.
When we hope and dream about something new and better it is an inner nudge to grow. But if we are in a hurry and set unrealistic goals we will sabotage our efforts. The surest way is to do something small that we will be consistent about. A nudge is small. A persistent doable action is small and will yet result in more benefits than we can imagine.
I just came back from VT where to colors were spectacular. Soon all those golden and red leaves will be on the ground and signal a time of no growth. Rest is a part of growth. A bulb in the ground is fattening up, so to speak, getting ready to flower again come Sprig. We, too, need a time to consolidate and gather strength. Rest is a deep part of growing. Lets it’s good to make sure we get some.
Remember the growing pains as our young bodies stretched to new lengths? I wonder why growing and pain are often associated? Must they be? I don’t think so.
Perhaps when we give up resistance to change our growing is more exciting than painful. So why not encourage what is naturally trying to emerge and let up on the control of it?
Our hair grows on its on and so do our fingernails. Why would it not be true that deep down our essence is growing as well? In small periods of frequent silence we might sense that work within us . . . that mystery and magic.
“Grow up!” some irate parent might say when a kid has made an irritating blooper. But who says “Grow Down” into loving participation in life? To root into what matters is the maturity of kindness and purposeful engagement.
After putting the planters on the veranda to bed for the winter, I took cuttings from the geraniums. Into a glass of water went the stems. Now waiting follows. Waiting is a big part of growing, and we rarely like doing it. Simple trust that what needs to happen will happen is the key that makes waiting into awaiting . . . a time filled with humility and patience. More is afoot than our own ideas and plans.
Happy Halloween. I’ll never grow tired of the little spooks loving their costumes and anticipating their goodies. We all somehow know that keeping our inner child happy is a way to always be growing.
