Spring Awakening~

Wow, it's been quite a while since I last sat down to craft a post.  It's been a full few months with the sudden and unexpected loss of my mother's brother and then the loss of my beloved dog, Parker. And of course all the busyness that the holidays and new year bring. I feel like we are all just now coming out of the tumbling of that wave of events.

And I just celebrated my 44th birthday on March 16th and with that, the start of a new year has begun.  And today is the first day of Spring. And Spring has arrived precisely on time trailing blooms and sunshine as she announces her glorious arrival.

I love how the season brings with it a distinct, clear energy. Spring is the energy of hope, new beginnings, renewal, beauty and exuberance. I don't know why, but this year feels significant to me.  I can feel that significance just under the surface of my being vibrating, growing, building strength and waiting for just the right time to emerge. Emerge into what and in what way, I have no idea.  It's really just an inner knowing kind of thing.

Curiously, leading up to my birthday, I noticed that for several weeks I happened to check the time at exactly 4:44  in the afternoon everyday. I don't know what to call that: an accident, on purpose,  peculiar? I certainly have not had my alarm set to go off then, so I've noticed the odd consistency of this and find it funny. Since turning 44, it hasn't happened again which I find even more peculiar and funny.

Anyway, it feels like something is up.  Maybe it's just me waking up more? I really do feel this shift happening,  and, for once, I am just letting it happen. I'm not trying to make it happen, which is a refreshing change in and of itself.

 I know that for a long time everything just felt so hard and frustrating and confusing and any kind of clarity seemed just beyond my reach. Certainly, the last few years have been full of a  desire to understand, unravel and learn as much I could from my life and the circumstances I found myself in with regards to family struggles, moving, teaching and the like.

By nature, I happen to be quite impatient with things and have a tendency toward pushing the flow. So, of course, I found myself constantly reading and studying and learning as much as I could in a variety of realms in the hopes that I could hurry up and figure things out. Unfortunately, I only found myself left with a head full of information, a headache, and no real answers that I could fully discern or put together. I really have had to give things time to settle and allow for my whole being to digest all the information I've been taken in over the past several years.

I think I've also realized that this, this doing too much, does not serve me.  The good news is that my desire to learn lies at the heart of this search for answers and this pushing I tend to do to move past the difficult.  But life is funny and constantly shows us the error of our ways. Being a peacemaker, a creator and artist at heart, it makes sense that a forceful, analytical approach to life is not natural or easy for me, so of course the learning has been hard. That said, I do think all the work has helped in some ways, while at the same time, hindered progress in other ways.

We know when we know, right? Real learning cannot be forced, it has to happen in its own time.

So what the past few years of life have been teaching me and constantly reminding me of is just to Relax. Pushing only leads to burnout. I'm not saying that effort and action are not required on my part, they are.  It's just that real change doesn't usually happen instantly. Real change is a process and happens at the level of the soul first.

First the inner understanding and form, and then the outer form follows. That's a yoga teaching right there for sure. I love it when a teaching comes to life, for that is a sign that a teaching has been integrated.

I have a feeling more of these hits of clarity are to come, so I will let the unfolding of understanding occur.

Happy Spring and Blessings on a Bright New Beginning,
Marcia