As I grow in experience, age, and – hopefully – wisdom, I find more and more often that if I keep my eyes open and pay attention, valuable lessons and metaphors are all around me.
This morning I took Charlie for a walk along the Clackamas River. We’d just been there last week, Monday or Tuesday. There were plenty of rocky beaches exposed and the water was fairly calm. Today it was a completely different story. I was . . . flabbergasted is the best word I can come up with . . . at how much water was in the river and the lagoon Charlie often likes to wade and swim in.
The river was twice as wide as the last time I’d seen it; the lagoon much bigger and deeper. Those rocky banks were completely covered in several feet of murky water. In fact, the areas just a few feet below the paved path looked liked swamps: the alder, maple and cottonwoods looked more like cypress wading knee-deep in water. The little area where we usually walk down to the lagoon was completely gone. The ramp to the Sheriff’s boathouse and dock is normally a steep decline; today it was almost level. And it happened so quickly!
As I walked along pondering these huge changes, I thought about how the landscapes of our lives can completely change overnight. Losses or disasters, accidents or illnesses, even unexpected blessings and graces and insights can completely change our views. Often these can be very painful and difficult and we long to go back to normality, to what we’ve always known and been comfortable with. But these experiences often have the potential to broaden us, deepen us, carry us beyond our normal channels of life, of thinking, and give us a kind of unexpected freedom. Like the rain-swollen rivers, we can become filled to overflowing with compassion, understanding, love, wisdom and a desire to make a difference, or at least be different.
Usually, like the floods, these feelings and changes are temporary, and eventually we recede back into the well-known paths, the accepted comfort zones for us. But sometimes the experience of flowing beyond our banks, being freed to be a little wider, a little wilder, a little outside the expectations of family, friends and society, can lead us to flow through new channels, follow new paths. I’ve been reading “Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life” by Fr. Richard Rohr. He talks about great suffering and great love as the two main portals to the second half of life, one of wisdom, love and union with God and all of creation. This is a journey that is ongoing and takes great courage but holds the potential for becoming fully the people God created us to be. It’s a great book, very thought-provoking and wise.
Another recent experience I had presented more metaphors from nature. I’ve likely mentioned before that birds seems to me to be special messengers. I have a particular affection for Canada geese; I use a sketch of one on my logo for Gray Wings Press. I can’t recall when I first felt this connection to Canada Geese – possibly when John and I, fairly recently married, moved to a small farm near the Ridgefield, Washington, wildlife refuge and regularly experienced huge flocks of geese flying overhead. But perhaps this connection goes back much further.
A little over a week ago I was driving north on I-205, bound for an interview regarding my next book. Just after I crossed over the I-205 bridge spanning the Columbia River I spotted a flock of geese – probably 15 or so – heading west. As I watched them I saw another flock of about the same size heading east. The two flocks were flying directly towards each other, like two spears poised to strike together. I held my breath and watched in fear and awe, believing they were going to crash together, fight to hold their position, their “sky space,” and that geese would be injured and killed in the coming together.
But I was wrong. As I watched, the most amazing thing happened. The flocks of geese did, in fact, come together, but they meshed seamlessly – as skillfully as a well-practiced drill team -- and formed one larger flock. In the process of this maneuver, the flock turned south and flew towards the river. I gasped, in relief but also amazement. I believed I had received an amazing gift in viewing this cooperation. As I continued my trip north, I thought about how many times humans hold so fast to our beliefs, our positions, our possessions, our self-righteousness that we aren’t able to even see the possibility that we might all be going in the same direction. We can’t give up an inch of our space, our stuff, our beliefs in order to help each other and work together to arrive safely at our journey’s end. A journey that we really all are on and that well might be much more enjoyable and productive if we worked together instead of gritting our teeth and flying forward headlong, giving no quarter to our supposed enemies. And these are geese! Clearly much wiser than many humans. No wonder I think of them as special messengers.
So keep your eyes and hearts open to the messages the world sends you through nature. You might see or hear just exactly the message your soul needs today.
