A Sister’s Wisdom as Brilliant as Dancing Leaves
I thought it was forecasted to be sunny today. But at this early morning moment, the clouds – while crisp and metallic white – are pervasive, covering all but a small bowtie shaped swath of pale blue sky. Still, I do not fear. I can hold the rain, if it comes…I am lighter, freer, emptier now. Yesterday, I used my “spirit jar”. (This is the same idea as a “god box”; I insert a scrap of paper indicating something that I want to release control over and in so doing I offer it up to the “pervading Spirits”.) I don’t think it was a coincidence that the idea to call my sister for counsel on a personal issue came just moments after I’d replaced the cork on my spirit jar. While we don’t speak on the phone often, we are close enough that we can always pick up the conversation with the thread we last discussed, however many months ago that was. Her response to my dilemma was unexpected – freeing, light, and positive. She offered remarks I hadn’t anticipated, support and love of a shining quality, brilliant and beautiful. Far off at the edge of the field, I can see right now the gentle twitching of leaves in the breeze. They remind me of the aspen leaves’ dance, even though these are alders I am watching. There is an almost-twinkling quality to their colorless glow – as if their movement illuminates them so brightly they lose their chlorophyll-enhanced shade of green. Sometimes the day doesn’t bring an outer landscape that at first glance seems to mirror me, but on closer consideration it does. A long deep sigh of wind turns leaves into dancing stars in an otherwise clouded landscape. The conversation with my sister last evening was just like that: a sparkling gem that reminded me of beauty, hope and most of all – all that we don’t know, can’t predict and must live in this moment. In a situation I’d created as a dreary internal stance to a thing I resisted, I was able to find the bounty of openness, vastness and possibility. Where I’d begun slamming doors, my dear, wiser, older sister began opening them, gently guiding me back to spaciousness. I think these inner/outer journeys are crucial to life, for Life, for each of us. Whether or not we “go there”, acknowledging our interdependence with all beings, the relationship still exists.
All blog photographs taken by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.
