When I left for southern California the last weekend in
March, it was with the full expectation that I’d return home a week later to a city
that had finally put winter behind it.
Instead, I awoke this Monday to the sight of more snowflakes falling
from the sky! Even for those of you who
don’t mind winter (or even love it!) this week may be the final straw as the
desire to feel the warm sun mixed with the cool aromatic spring breeze on your
skin grows stronger with each passing moment.
So how can you create your own sense of spring when Mother
Nature is imposing a different agenda?
How do you experience a change you desire when the outer world seems
hell bent on mirroring back the opposite?
We often hear that change starts from within, and then our outer circumstances
will begin to shift, but then there are those times when the results we desire seem
a bit slow to arrive. . .
In the practice of Reiki, the instructions for meditating on
the precepts (principles that affirm one’s true self or true nature) ask us to
morning and evening place our hands in gassho (prayer position). This practice of starting and ending your day
with intention helps you to align with the energy you want to embody throughout
the day as well as the energy you want to settle into as your day winds down.
Over time, this practice of framing your day with intention reinforces
the inner experience of your deepest desires, even when your outer world has
yet to catch up. Eventually, the energy springs
up so strongly that it can’t help but influence your experience of the world around
you. While none of us have control over the weather
patterns and how nature decides to transition seasons, the more we allow our
daily practices, habits and rituals to align with the spirit of spring, the
less the weather will even matter. For
myself, I am seeing this extended winter as an opportunity to do some deeper spring
cleaning at home so when the weather does become nicer, I will feel even more
free to enjoy and appreciate my time outside.
When we don’t see the world reflecting back to us what we
most desire, it becomes an opportunity to dig in deeper on a soul level to
embody the energy of our intentions. It
is an invitation from spirit to take greater responsibility for the changes we
want to make and not passively rely on our circumstances to take us there. To do this, it is not only important to greet
each day with clear intention, but to also use your daily rituals, habits and
activities to engage the energy of those intentions as well as use your natural
intuitive sensitivities to guide you in the direction of your desires. When you make it a habit to return to your
intentions and activate the energy you want to experience throughout the day,
your natural sensitivities will automatically kick in and you will find
yourself seeing, feeling, hearing and even tasting the things in your world
that align with those intentions. I know
for myself, on the grayest of days, I soooo appreciate the colorful sight of
the flowers on the stands outside the corner stores, and the joyful sound of
silly laughter coming from young children.
These reinforce my intention to allow spring to unfold from deep within
this year instead of waiting around for Mother Nature to do all the work for
me!
