Summer has ended for the Northwest, even though we had a 70 degree day only two weeks ago. The weather has been noticeably different. The leaves have changed color, the grass is growing a little bit slower, the surface of the roads are a damp, and the clocks are turning back this weekend. Here is Seattle, we were fooled this summer with consistent heat and sunshine. It was a good thing. Lots of time to spend outdoors playing, laughing, and needing cool refreshment along the way. It seems like the change this year between seasons has been swift, yet, minute by minute, the world has been slowly changing and preparing for the fall and winter resting time.
We are privileged to know and support local farmers, Matt and Christina, and I can't help myself by checking in on them daily through Instagram (@GreenbowFarm) and at our weekly trip to the farmers market, where they have a stand to sell their goods. Farmers are still the best at cataloging change. They work with it every day and are so in tune with the physical changes around us. So much so that they feel change and respond accordingly. Those of us who are wrapped up on the "work" road (read the previous post in this blog to get the reference) have a harder time noticing, or feeling, the subtle but also constant change around us.
It makes sense, logically, that change is also very hard for us, especially when we feel as though it has blind-sided us. We are unequipped to deal with or even acknowledge some of the change that is going on around us, perhaps for weeks or months beforehand. Personally, there have been moments of change in my life that I desperately wanted to completely ignore because it was too hard to "go there". But there have also been moments of change where I was able to see the opportunity to be a part of the change; to allow it to transform me and for me to give my gifts to it. I gravitate towards this kind of change today. I seek it out. I look for it. I try, desperately at times, to feel it. So much of my professional development as a therapist, advocate, and human being can besummed up in the desire to, as the Dali Lama once proclaimed, "Be the change you wish to see in the world". I have felt a freedom since looking at change in this way. I have owned my part in the change, because it is happening, whether I want it to or not.
As we set our clocks back an hour this Sunday at 2AM PST, I am reminded of a few things:
1) I get an extra hour of sleep (I also need to set my son's clock back because he will wake us up at 6am if we don't). 2) There is change available to me and the opportunity to be transformed because of it. 3) The farmer is harvesting food and goods and transforming our lives by giving their change to us.
Peace.
