A Beautiful Mess

"The world is God's language to us." Simone Weil

The woods are in mayhem right now. Everything that can push up out of the ground, turn green, throw pollen or chains or bud sheaths is doing so. The cool air is yellow from the exploding pollen and is drifting with pale castings of every size, shape and description. It's absolutely beautiful.

Growing up, it was hard for spring to roll past without some type of major house project getting underway. My Dad, a man of unlimited talents, could make or do or fix almost anything, and Mom was an endless source of ideas. Spring often triggered in Mom an activity for Dad to be about the least of which she innocently referred to as 'rearranging the furniture'. It sounded simple enough, but it was really code language for what invariably turned out to be a huge clean out, room changing transformation, at the end of which we were all left somewhat wide eyed and not always sure about where we were sleeping.

Sometimes we also bring about mayhem in the process of creating or experiencing something new or different in our own lives. Changing often means we will be asked to endure a measure of chaos before we get the rooms in our lives arranged in the new way that suits us. There may be a good bit of throwing things out, outgrowing old expectations, pushing up through hard soil, as well as a bit of drifting, just as it happens outside this time of year. All the 'ing' phases of life: birthing, growing, changing are also code words for messy, chaotic and confusing. But after a while, we find our own rhythm and our lives sort out, just as the natural world does. Then, as in the great outer world, our new self smooths out, chaos recedes. And taking our hint from spring, we too can calm down, relax into summer and go on to bear fruit.