The physical and spiritual resources the earth provides are evident everywhere around us, but it is nature’s living example of growth and survival – it’s ability to sustain itself – from which we have much to learn. Nature can be a valuable teacher, if we allow ourselves to heed her lessons and embrace her example.
Plants, although rooted firmly in the ground, still move in response to changes in their environment. Light provides the energy source for plants, and they have evolved a very efficient mechanism for maximizing their exposure – phototropism. Light is so essential to their growth that they will literally bend over backward in order to find it.
As human beings, there are times in our lives when we may feel as though we are trapped in our present circumstances, rooted to the very spot where we stand, unable to move forward. Even in those times of personal darkness, though, there is light to be found (even if just a tiny speck) somewhere. If we can find a way to turn our face to the light, the energy we need to sustain us is there, awaiting discovery, ready to be absorbed. It can feel like a great effort – finding the light – but it is one of which we are definitely capable, if we remember that the light is ever there for us to draw energy from. Human beings are phototrophic, too.
Nature – in all of her resilience and fragility – provides us with myriad examples of ways to sustain ourselves in our own. These lessons are everywhere around us, if we open our eyes to see, and we take the time to foster the connection.
Today, what lesson will you glean from nature’s example?
~ Christiana
The Words of Wisdom? is a publication of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Gwinnett.
This instantly reminded me of a series of messages I received recently from a friend of mine via email he calls ‘Hope Cards’. These are sayings that he and fellow peers who have a shared experience living with mental illness have written to given themselves and others hope for their journey. “Sometimes, it’s only when we’re in complete darkness that our eyes become able to see the light.” In my own journey, I have found that to absolutely be true. Not only does that work with the pupil in our eyes physically, but when we start to view life through the lens of hope.