Is trust hard for you? (Part 1)

Brrrrr… what an icy few weeks we’ve had! It’s February after all, the coldest and snowiest month of the year. I’ve had my woodstove blazing both to keep me warm and remind me that this too will pass.

When it’s so cold out, it can be hard to remember that even here in frigid New England, the green tips of crocuses and snow drops will begin to break through the soil in just over a month.

Spring cannot be denied.

Unless you’re an early riser, you may not be noticing the sun’s light coming through your window just a bit earlier each morning.

And here’s another bit of good news I didn’t know! As we near the spring equinox — now just a month away — this increasing light is happening ever more quickly. As if excited for what’s to come, the sun speeds up its return to almost 4 minutes a day by the vernal equinox! Every year! No matter what else is going on.

There’s no denying this. The light is returning! Hallelujah! We just have to hold on and remember what we know is true. It’s a fact that, no matter how difficult these interminably cold days may feel, just like every other year this like-no-other winter will end.

The natural world is here to help us trust. And give us a bit of perspective. I need that more than ever in February!

Because if you’re anything like me, given half a chance, fear will co-opt your own personal histories, partner up with the incessant scary news, and project doom into your future. Isn’t some variation on that theme what wakes you in the night?

It’s when we’ve disconnected ourselves from the Natural world and our bodies — as we are want to do living in a culture that for hundreds of years has mistrusted the body’s cycles and it’s knowing — that we lose touch with a basic trust in what supports our wellbeing.

Then it makes sense why we rely on our flailing minds to try to figure out how to keep us safe, to get it all right. We just need to try harder to figure it all out. Sound familiar?

So, how do we find trust?

When my mind has gone off the rails into whirling aberrations of ghoulish possibilities, I know the best route back to sanity — and trust — is remembering what’s also truth. That’s where memory does help, and coming back to what I can feel with my body.

Spring will come again. It always has! The Earth is round. By some beneficent gift of the natural world, beyond even humanity’s demonic proclivity to mess it up, the sun returns every Spring. We can trust it, yes? The earth’s cycles hold us.

Every morning the sun’s light returns, just like the Springtime. Though its every-day-ness can dull us to the mystery and magnificence of it all, somehow without any effort from us, the sun will continue to rise each morning.

That’s something to trust!

And this. With our first breath of the morning – and every breath until our last – no matter how difficult the night has been, our lungs receive the exact proportion of oxygen needed to perfectly supply our bodies’ needs.

That’s something to trust!

Or this. Your intestines have evolved over eons to absorb the vitamins and antioxidant nutrients in last night’s broccoli that itself grew from some exquisitely proportioned blend of sun, rain, and nutrient-filled soil to provide your body with exactly what it needs.

Again… something to trust!

We are held by the Natural world. We are supported far more than we realize… far more, in fact, than our science knows or we can begin to comprehend.

It’s just that we forget.

We forget to really take in — to receive — what is true! We are so busy doing and working and putting out that we fail to take in what can soothe and support us through even the scariest days yet to come this winter.

Remembering that we can trust the Natural cycles helps us remember what is truth, despite whatever scary demons keep us up at night.

I know it’s cold! But today, no matter what’s there pestering your thoughts, why not take your body and its senses out for a walk? Or buy a bunch of daffodils for your kitchen table. Take in what is also true. Take in what’s there for you to receive!!! Those gifts are here to support and bless you, and they didn’t need you to make them happen.

No matter what other craziness will happen today, let your body remember — and receive — the infinite support that’s everywhere around you. As you walk, can you feel the solid ground beneath you? Can you let yourself trust this?

Because while feeling this always-present ground of support may not stop the pandemic or reverse climate change or figure out how to pay the bills, when we live actively receiving the abundant blessings of the Natural world, we are more resilient to manage whatever else might come our way. Don’t take my word for it…

Get out there and see for yourself.

With so much love,