Nature takes no halfway measures.
When in balance, with the sure and languorous change of seasons, we are lulled into the belief that our regimes and schemes hold sway, that humanity is all powerful in its display of dominance and power. Our technologies collude in the illusion of control and eminent domain over earths terrain, climate and creatures.
But in its circuit through time, Nature will reassert the truth that our human powers are indeed very small in this domain of climate, weather patterns, and impending descent of ancient phases of drought or cold, or flood.
And the temporary cloud of our own habits, that of half-measures and dismissal of inconvenient truths is swept away. Nature’s set of boundaries and consequences, laws and regulations, rebalance with a vengeance. And not always in response to our interference; sometimes we are simply caught in the re-alignment that it must make within itself.
The message is clear, however. We may plan and rebuild, we arise from ashes and mud, but there is greater power and will than ours and we may only respond to it. We are part of the nature of things and the larger creation.
Of course, for us individually these lessons intrude into our consciousness. It does not take a hundred year flood, a wildfire of epic proportion or the fury of tornadoes and destruction of nine point earthquake to instruct us.
Nature takes no halfway measures; she will have her way.
To experience the birth of a baby, with the involuntary contractions triggered by hidden hormonal centers, to lose a treasured loved one to the arrival of mortality will impress us indelibly with the fact that in such things there are no halfway measures. It is all in, and we are best advised to align ourselves with its ebb and flow… for we can no more stop the waves of the ocean or its tides, than we may resist this.
Within, is found a certain joy for those who will embrace it. Not in the destruction or the pain, but in the realization of rejoicing in the process along the way. Growth and the miracle of life, memories built during our time with our beloved fellow beings, giving love, giving valued work, receiving connection and marveling at the beauty with awe and gratefulness.
Where do we find the strength to rejoice in times when we are pulled into “circumstances beyond our control”?
We look up. We hope. We believe.
And then we look around us, knowing that there will yet be good, beauty, and joy. In that, too, there are no halfway measures.
