It’s so amazing what we can learn about ourselves from nature and the wonderful world around us just by sitting, watching and communing with it.
As I left the house for my walk this morning around 6:15 am, I noticed the sky was cloudy, it was windy and the air had that humid, flowing, comfortable feel to it that often precedes the rain. Living like I do in Arizona, the land of the sun, I found the temperature of the morning pleasing and a good match for my inner mood…calm, yet excited at the same time about the adventures awaiting me around the corner…
As I took off walking, I met a neighbor who excitedly shared “Wow, the sky sure is beautiful isn’t it!” And it was. I looked up and noticed there was indeed much more to see than what my short glance at the sky had revealed just moments earlier as I left my home. The sky was a mixture, being part clear blue sky on one side and cloudy, swirly, grayness on the other. This made for a beautiful contrast and so midway through my walk I sat down on a ledge in a corner just off the roadway to drink in more of the beauty. Skylines intrigue me. No matter what the state of the skyline, cloudy, clear or overcast, looking at the sky makes me feel as if I’m floating. It opens me and tugs at me reminding me of the abundance, limitlessness and infinite possibility all around me.
The Rainbows
As I sat, I noticed that, in front of me, lay the clear blue sky; behind me and the corner wall I was leaning up against, lay the massive, swirling clouds of grayness. I spent a few moments playing, looking back and forth in front and behind me, exploring the sensations created within me by the contrasting views of light and dark. Looking behind me again, I noticed a rain storm advancing towards me. It was one of those short, microbursts where the gray stormy clouds release their energy is a short powerful burst of energy then give way, quiet down and melt into the blue skies surrounding them. The wind picked up and tickled my skin as it blew past me – swooshing out an intermittent song as it started and stopped and started again as the storm moved towards me. Something inside stirred as I watched the rain cutting through the air down the road behind me, and so, with anticipation, I nuzzled cozily back into the corner where I was sitting, and awaited the deluge.
As I did so, my focus drew upward and that’s when I saw it. Right there in front of me, right before my eyes, close to the border between the gray sky and the blue, lay a full rainbow extending, shining and arching in full glory from one side of the land to the other. And if that wasn’t enough…as I sat gazing at the one full rainbow, a second glorious half-rainbow materialized right before me. The already beautiful contrast between the grey clouds and the blue sky was made even more spectacular by the bright shades of the rainbows lying in between. At that moment, I felt so blessed to be living on bountiful Mother Earth and witnessing such magnificence!
The Titter Tattering…
Returning my gaze to the scene closer to the ground, I noticed that, each time the wind picked up, it would blow the dry, fallen leaves that were lying in the roadway down the road past me. With each swoosh of the wind, leaves of varying sizes and shades of brown would pick up and take off marching down the street, blowing this way and that, appearing to be disconnected, yet still moving down the street in unison, as one, as if playing a game of musical marching chairs. They bouncing leaves created a percussion of sound that likewise tapped on my heart and throughout my body…titter tat, titter tat, titter tat…pause….titter tat, titter tat, titter tat… As the wind continued to start and stop, the leaves blew further and further down the road past me, further and further out past the grayness, further and further into the blueness of the sky.
Watching the leaves, I couldn’t help but be reminded of all that we as humans can accomplish when we work together in unison, our own diverse colors and sounds making up a beautiful symphony of life. While we march on, starting and stopping, titter tattering down the road of life, seemingly in the midst of unending storms hiding rainbows, unknowingly we are usually moving towards our own blue sky, towards our own better future. Sometimes the sky above us just looks ugly and menacing and unending. It’s during those times that we can choose to adjust our focus, our perception and our thoughts.
Instead, we can choose to look for the rainbows of hope within the seemingly gray and menacing clouds that surround us. We can let that hope lift our eyes, our moods, our wings…our spirits, so that we can lighten up and get into the natural Flow of Life in unison with each other, titter tattering and marching together in our own diverse ways, but with the Flow and not against it. Before we know it, we’ll have reached our goal and can then pause and bask in the beauty and warmth of our blue sky before traveling onwards and upwards towards the next grand adventure of life.
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