I'm rarely in the US for the changing of seasons, so this week, as the snow melts and the weather starts to warm up, I find myself drinking in this transition into Spring.
A couple of days ago, I walked around our yard to see what beauties of nature I could find. I noticed a few straggling leaves on each tree - leaves who had refused their time of death in Autumn and instead clung to their life as they knew it on the limb. They had somehow made it through a brutal winter, still stubbornly hanging on. But new life is coming soon, and these old guys are in for a big wake-up call when they'll be forced to finally give up the fight and let the new buds spring forth in their place.
I also have a new life on the way, set to arrive in about 6 weeks. I've noticed patterns in my dreams, revealing the fears tucked away in my subconscious about all I must die to in order to let this new life really thrive. Even as I write a list in my journal of these things I know I must let go, I feel a deep resistance to it all. To...
Letting go of a spontaneous life. Letting go of my precious sleep. Letting go of my body as I know it. Letting go of my youth. Letting go of how I desire to use my time.
The wise have always told us that Death is always required if New Life is to enter, and all of nature seems to be telling me this, too. I cherish the fact that my baby will be born in Springtime and in the Easter season - a whole season dedicated to New Life after a winter of hibernation and death.
“Love in its fullest form is a series of deaths and rebirths. We let go of one phase, one aspect of love, and enter another. Passion dies and is brought back. Pain is chased away and surfaces another time. To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many many endings, and many many beginnings – all in the same relationship.”
So I also write down all that will be brought forth if I choose to let go of the old and usher in this New Life. I will gain...
A kind of love I've not yet known. A growing relationship with Eric. An opportunity to question and learn and grow in myself. A connection with every other parent on the planet. An added piece of my identity.
I know I must let go in order to gain. I look inward and tell myself not to be like those stubborn leaves, hanging onto their old lives and refusing to fall into what is. So I let myself die to the old things in order to give birth to something entirely new.
Is there something you must die to in order to bring forth something new in your life?
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them.”