Seasonal changes have two forms in our lives- there is the season we ascribe to a given time frame often determined by imposed measures of time like calendar months or with the progression of equinoxes and solstices. There is also the seasonality of the land with whom we live which is informed by general weather patterns, the growth of flora and fauna, the shifting patterns of light, and the stirring of body and spirit in concert with the places we are rooted.
Here in south central Texas the wildflowers have a predictable procession. I can tell you the likely weather, length of day, character of the sky, likely animal friends visiting my home-all based on what flowers are in what proportion at any given time of year, especially along the highways. There's a relationship there, a dance between all these aspects of the environment that provides the cues for certain flowers to bloom and those flowers in turn inform other aspects of the environment from what insect life is available to pollinate other plants and feed other animals to the changing levels of nutrients in the soil as they return to feed the earth from which they spring.
Of course, now there is climate chaos. There is weather all out of season or disproportionate to the Earth's hungers. Animals following their natural cycles come to this place and find their usual foods unavailable or find their predators too numerous or their prey too few because that which fed them is not growing. There is a sweetness to the beauty of a sudden profusion of flowers that is touched by the sorrow of knowing the imbalances that gave them birth. This knowing that has developed from almost four decades of living in Texas no longer can be relied on to pattern my own days.
But the flowers still bloom. And they are still signposts as much as they are a bittersweet wonder to eyes and hands and hearts. They still tell us about the weather and the soil and the rhythms of the land with whom we live. And we can begin to know not only the stories these flowers tell us but also our own signposts. What flowers spring up in you, nourish and delight your heart when the weather of your life is in time with your own rhythms, your own needs? What grows when the weather is heavy, turgid with unshed tears that cannot water your life until you shed them? What blooms in you when the soil of community is toxic with spillage from yourself or others?
In this flourishing month, with the Flower Moon shining in our lives, I encourage you to reflect on what is growing in the soils of your own bodies, hearts, spirits, and communities. Hear what they are saying about your life and about what you may need to feed your flourishing. And set to work-and play and rest- with heart and hands full of the flowers that grow when we are in meaningful relationship with ourselves and our world.
Here in south central Texas the wildflowers have a predictable procession. I can tell you the likely weather, length of day, character of the sky, likely animal friends visiting my home-all based on what flowers are in what proportion at any given time of year, especially along the highways. There's a relationship there, a dance between all these aspects of the environment that provides the cues for certain flowers to bloom and those flowers in turn inform other aspects of the environment from what insect life is available to pollinate other plants and feed other animals to the changing levels of nutrients in the soil as they return to feed the earth from which they spring.
Of course, now there is climate chaos. There is weather all out of season or disproportionate to the Earth's hungers. Animals following their natural cycles come to this place and find their usual foods unavailable or find their predators too numerous or their prey too few because that which fed them is not growing. There is a sweetness to the beauty of a sudden profusion of flowers that is touched by the sorrow of knowing the imbalances that gave them birth. This knowing that has developed from almost four decades of living in Texas no longer can be relied on to pattern my own days.
But the flowers still bloom. And they are still signposts as much as they are a bittersweet wonder to eyes and hands and hearts. They still tell us about the weather and the soil and the rhythms of the land with whom we live. And we can begin to know not only the stories these flowers tell us but also our own signposts. What flowers spring up in you, nourish and delight your heart when the weather of your life is in time with your own rhythms, your own needs? What grows when the weather is heavy, turgid with unshed tears that cannot water your life until you shed them? What blooms in you when the soil of community is toxic with spillage from yourself or others?
In this flourishing month, with the Flower Moon shining in our lives, I encourage you to reflect on what is growing in the soils of your own bodies, hearts, spirits, and communities. Hear what they are saying about your life and about what you may need to feed your flourishing. And set to work-and play and rest- with heart and hands full of the flowers that grow when we are in meaningful relationship with ourselves and our world.
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