This past weekend, after the election and a big snowstorm, my love and I hiked up to my crone tree, an enormous evergreen who has offered me immeasurable wisdom for almost five years now. We needed to reckon with our grief.
The snow sparkled a bit from the much-welcomed sun rays, and we shook heavy clumps off some tree branches along the way. It was deep in many places making our journey up the hill a slow slog.
We didn’t talk much, so I noticed the stillness. While our minds had been spinning off in a thousand directions as our world seemed to have changed overnight, the forest had not changed. She was steady. She was quiet.
Same with my tree. As I approached her with the offering I had brought, she stood there as always, regal and strong. I pressed my forehead against her and sobbed. I poured out my sadness, my disbelief and my fears, and my tree was there same as ever, holding me. Telling me, “Be here. In this moment.”
Up to this point, I had paid no attention to what my love was doing, but I turned around and saw that he had made a little nest of towels on top of a tree stump. He was lying over it, heart open to the sky with his eyes closed.
A little later, he rose, and I walked over to him. He offered me the opportunity to lie on the towel nest, heart to sky. I tried but couldn’t do it. I was not yet ready to open my heart. I sort of half-sat, half-leaned on the stump, staring at my tree and felt her saying, “it’s okay to be where you are, just be here in this moment.”
So that’s where I am trying to be. More fully in the moment I am in. I feel different in this moment as I write than I did in the moment with my tree, and different than I will a moment from now.
I don’t really know what to say or do about what happened to our country with the last election. Of course, it has been happening all along. All the moments up until the election led to that moment and there will be all the moments after. I can’t control anything except how I meet these moments.
Since the weekend, I’ve moved my body, meditated, channeled and talked with dear ones, and through this, connected with some higher wisdom. I’m still processing most of it, but I’ll share this much now. I will not let my fear of what’s to come steal my freedom. Lots of things are predicted, but we can never know what the next moment will contain. Consciousness is shifting, even though it might not seem to be. It is painful. It is also beautiful. Our hearts are capable of holding both.
The only moment we have is now. We must allow ourselves to fully meet it as we are. And, like the forest teaches, we must learn to be still.
If I can be of support to you, please let me know. I offer readings, healings, spiritual mentoring, movement, sacred circles and nature connection. I’m also available just to chat. Reach me at RememberYourWings.com.
