The Essence of Hope
I find much inspiration from Nature. Our greatest teacher is Nature, and being in practice with the role of the student, we have the capacity to carefully observe the rhythms and cycles of nature, as well as the nuances and language that is said without the spoken word. We must be willing to engage in that mysterious language that is more abstract and metaphoric.
The task in observing the truth of nature - is understanding the cycles. Looking deeply, translating the unspoken languages, we can find much hope naturally occurring in Nature. We might notice there is a time for resetting, of stillness, or yin - that in this human world might be seen as non-productive. For some reason, we as humans can attach our identity to “doing” rather than “being.” However, it is in the “being” that we access our own unique energetics and give power to the unique imprints we can make in our worlds.
There is also a time of yang - of fullness and outward expansion - but this motion cannot be truly followed through to completion without fully accessing and being in the stillness - the soil of our own being. We cannot fully manifest the flowering plant without being first held and nurtured in the richness of the soil.
When we look at a flower, we can observe an entire universe within that flower. The colors, the shape of its petals, the size of the blossom, the shape and color of the stamen, the length of the stem and where the leaves emerge from that stem. We can use all of our senses to gently touch, observe, drink in and smell the fragrance of that flower.
Here, drinking in this radiance, we might notice how each flower has its own journey, its own purpose. If the world decided to implode, each plant would find its own way to reproduce. Each divine essence of the flower would remember its original coding - which is to be what they innately know. Nature teaches us that nothing can really be destroyed. It may be altered, but the push to move forth is not taken away.
That is the Essence of Hope. This the glimmer of forward movement despite appearances. Perhaps the dim light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Hope is the crocus pushing through the bitter chill of early spring snow; the sprout of green moving through the impossible climate of a concrete sidewalk. The lotus growing out of the muck and mire. This notion lives in each plant in the forest, the collective community that is created in the symbiotic interconnectedness of the intelligence each imbues.
It is an act of personal power to disengage from the artificial droning of technology and even the of sensationalism in the news. The harsh energies of anger, fear and hopelessness are dense and all around us. We can choose to feed that droning or we can choose unplug to realign with our own innate rhythm. That innate rhythm, the intelligence within, is the hope we need.
If we have trouble accessing that intelligence, we can intentionally spend time in nature. Returning to the natural rhythms of the collective harmony of a forest can prove to be a simple yet profoundly healing act. Collectively, there is a unique construction of this planet’s organism and how it functions. All animals, plants, flowers and birds live in this rhythm, yet humans, on the whole, live in disconnect from it. When we connect back to this rhythm, we have a refreshed sense of peace and harmony. There - we can find the seed within that possesses hope.
We are a field of flowers, collectively. We all have beautiful truths, fragrances and unique imprints that have a genuine potency to offer. No one looks at a flower and deduces it to “too much,” or “not enough.” No one judges a flower for showing up however it may - with a petal missing or a yellow leaf mismatching the green- or maybe it’s smaller or larger - or maybe it’s color is a shade different from others. Perhaps it's a late blooming flower? A flower is not concerned with what the other flowers are doing, it simply operates from a place of being the flower it already is.
Why is it we can enjoy how nature appears yet we create a collective oppression against ourselves and each other around how we show up? Isn’t it Divine Intelligence that pushes us forth, like flowers, to “be” whatever we are?
We are carbon vessels, operated by the divine knowing of the soul, and we operate through these vessels. It is through this act of divine operating that we can align with the truth of who we are. And each vessel and soul has its own unique process. Tuning into that innate knowing, just like plants do, is the key to holding our own space and calibrating our own path through life. Not concerning itself in what the “other” plants are doing, and instead allowing for the natural rhythms to sound forth, is the birthing process of adding our own beat to the harmonies of the collective forest.
If we can, at any moment, hook into the divine flower that lives and breathes inside each one of us, we can then remember that knowingness despite what is occurring around us. Feeding that flower, asking at any moment what it needs to continue its journey of growth, of blossoming - of radiating whatever its message is - is the message of hope. It IS the message of nature and divine intelligence. It is the practice of self-love. Feeding ourselves and the process of growth, in any way that we do grow, is honoring the divine force of who you are.
