https://vimeo.com/157000204 "The Winter Lake Speaks," is a title that conjures up all sorts of beautiful imaginations. Mike is the one that came up with that great title. The minute he said it I knew it was the perfect fit for the message of my heart. It would seem that we all have an inherent attraction to staring out at the open water. If you think back to a time when you last did, it will more then likely evoke calm thoughts and clarity. In my own life water has been a medium of communication that spoke to my heart's longings.
I love watching the evolution that takes place out on these waters. The seasonal contrast of the carefree summer days, to the deep silence of winter's night, is a stark and rigid divide. Last month Mike and I went for a long walk out on the frozen lake. We were walking along very quietly for a time when suddenly a deep echoing thrum cascaded past us. It stopped us in our tracks. We looked at each other with puzzled eyes. "What was that?" We stood motionless, suppressed breathing to have a better listen. A few moments later, there it was again! "Could it be the lake making that sound?" "Does ice make this kind of sound?" I laugh now because at the time we thought there may be a wild animal encroaching. There was even talk of a bear. But with hibernation how was that possible? It was a warm winter so maybe it was. "Oh my Gosh, a bear?!!" Slowly these "city slickers" began realizing that the menacing sounds were simply the pulse below the frozen sheath sending out one slow and steady heart beat at a time. A reminder saying, "I'm still here, I'm still with you, don't lose hope." The prophetic words of hope now echoing true, an unstoppable warming trend is before us. The sun is now sitting much higher in the sky and spring quite simply will not be denied. As winter closes its doors upon this meditative season, our lake is shaking off it's winter cloak in the most dramatic of ways. Bending, snapping and cracking open it's spine to reveal a new chapter before us.
As I look out, I can't help but think of the many cycles we all go through in life. Vibrancy to dormancy, the yin and yang of expansion to contraction as we learn to make sense of it all. The ice playing a metaphor to our own story. Since coming to Maine we have found ourselves in a season of quiet, not by our own design, but rather an enforced solitude. It would seem that a conspiracy of nature has brought us to a place of stillness that demanded deep soul searching. It's been a time full of growth with a deeper connection to love and learning to simply trust. We find ourselves breaking open into the beautiful spring of possibility. A very wise man recently said to me, "We could never understand comfort without pain, laughter without sorrow, success without failure, warmth without cold..." In that moment it began making sense to me, the reason for winter, for without it there would be no hope in spring. As I loosen my resistance and allow myself to grow in new ways, the words, "just be" begin to resonate deeply. With the wrestler inside having now been pinned, the fight in me is gone and a new acceptance has grown in it's place. I will quite simply bloom where I am planted.
Welcome to Maine!