Lessons from Nature

Time in nature grounds me - walking in the woods around our house, sitting on a bench and listening to the bird calls return, feeling the warmth of the sun return and the joy that warm sun fills me with. Yet nature is not always this place of calm, the past two snowstorms with unrelenting snow and high winds that caused tree damage and buried tender new buds prove that. In the moment, it’s hard for me to feel grounded by this power of nature, yet so often I do resonate with the reality of this paradox that nature shows us over and over; power and destruction followed by calm and eventual regrowth.

The snow that just kept piling up in the last two storms, felt like the non-stop grief and loss that I and so many others are feeling. I shoveled at least twice thinking, “okay that’ll be the last time I need to do that”, and then somehow 4 more inches of snow fell. Just as when you get some difficult news and you work to process that, and then somehow something else happens and life just piles up.

Similarly, the destruction of fallen limbs and splintered trees leaves jagged edges, open “wounds” and scars on nearby trees, and gaping holes in the canopy. This feels so harsh and sharp, yet once you begin to clean up order returns and I there is the reminder that something else will get more light from that new space for sun and the edges will soften as the wounds heal.

Change is constant - in nature, in life. Change means we are living, but jeez can change be exhausting. And maybe that’s the reminder too, while there might be sudden changes (like a fallen limb), the regrowth and subsequent change is much slower happening over weeks or even months and years. Nearly always perceptible, but softened with new life and beauty emerging.

Here’s to spring and taking in the continual lessons from nature.