LEARNING TO SWAY

     Watching spring wind move across hillsides and through treetops makes me think of the importance of flexibility. A stiff branch can stand rigid against the wind for a while, almost in defiance, but if the wind comes strong enough, the branch breaks. It cracks, and snaps, and crashes to the gound. Grasses, on the other hand, and cat tails, know how to sway. They might get flattened a bit, but then they rise up and bounce back. They are fluid and flexible. They bend and dip. I want to be like that.
     Fear makes me rigid, and my desire to control things makes me rigid, and my desire to control people. If I just let the winds of life blow over me and around me and do not impose my strength and posture against them; if I let people be who they are, and be where they are on the path of life: my children, my parents, my friends; if I can trust that all is as it should be and that it is not my job to be in control of it all... then I can let go. I can loosen my hold. I can sway like the cattails and I don't have to break in half and crash to the ground.

I am willing to be flexible today.