Sawing away
Have you been hitting any boundaries, lately? Does the room seem too small, the world too strange, life a movie beyond anything familiar?
We have a lot coming straight at us, these days. Even in places or countries that — let’s be fair about this — aren’t as deeply affected by the whole corona sh*t storm. It is both useless and undesirable to start weighing thousand-and-one different faces of uncertainty and human suffering against each other. There are personal dramas, and there is a huge, collective wave. Both affect all of us to a greater or lesser extent. Whatever your particual coordinates on this three-dimensional spectrum, this is substantial.
As always, when old world are shaken to their core.
Personally, I find myself in a position of luxury. I merely have to keep the combination called family-work-school-household-personal needs afloat, without any looming threats of going broke, major illnesses or loss of loved ones (for the moment).
And even so, I have run into myself a few times already.
The specific details are of no importance — my demons and my inner processes are my own. But what I have learned, is that what is most challenging to me, most tough to handle in a new and different way, are not the changes in circumstance. They are my own inner strategies, eager to solv new situation with an old way of approaching it.
It’s not the situation I am running into, it is myself.
Today, our arborist came over to prune the trees in our garden. Every living creature needs to shed what has become superfluous, at times. European Certified Tree Workers aren’t your average chainsaw nuts. They know exactly which branches present long-term risks of tearing under their own weight, rot seeping in, frictional damage. They don’t hesitate to get their saws out. But they never just cut away, they don’t maim. The trees they have in their care, flourish.
Something fundamental is shifting in the subconscious of human kind, these days. We are all feeling it. It is taking on both the most heart-warming and most hideous of shapes, and its impact will be permanent.
Am I making myself stand taller, or do I take up a little less space? Do I hold my breath, waiting for a new dawn, or do I claim today to the last minute? Am I calculating what will perhaps be possible still (or again) in a near future, or do I allow this proces to truly change me, here and now?
I surrender to the influence of these times like a tree in the hands of a tree worker. I have no personal control over which of my branches is about to be sawed away. I do know that, because of what is having its way with me right now, I will grow and bloom in a whole new way.
