While out for a walk one day, I noticed this beautiful feather dancing around on the blades of grass. It was being tossed here and there by the wind. I love feathers, so it immediately drew my attention and made me smile.
It was like this feather wrapped its delicate hairs around this blade of grass to say, “this is where I need to stay awhile”, and soon it was “hung up”, unable to continue its dance through the field. A part of me immediately wanted to set it free again. I started to reach towards it and let it continue on its journey, but then something in me said, “WAIT!”.
I stopped and started to observe the feather.
What came to me was being hung up doesn’t make this feather any less beautiful or free. It is just now part of something else. It was like a knowing, or full acceptance, came to me, and I knew that when the timing is right for it to go on its way once again, it will unwind itself, let go, or something will happen to help it go. It could be the wind changes direction and is swept away; an animal rubs it off on its travels through, or the rain comes and invites the feather to slip away and continue, but there is trust in nature and that things will flow and move, as they are meant to.
Practice using intuition to guide you when you step in and when you don’t!
This nature lesson grounded me in recognizing my tendency to take action. For example, to help or take over a situation without actually pausing long enough to know the why of my action but more that it was an impulse that guided me from a good intention but not coming from a mindful place.
The four lessons I learned from this experience are:
- Learning opportunities are everywhere—still your body and your mind. Look deeper and more mindfully at what’s around you.
- We all have adopted tendencies or habits running on autopilot that may not allow our continued growth if we keep doing them. Pause when you feel drawn to take action and ask yourself if this is what you would typically do. If the answer is yes, try something else and see what happens.
- Sometimes we are meant to be quiet observers or witnesses. Don’t constantly change or take over something just because you have good intentions. Some of the best lessons we have deep-expansion from, are the ones we had to figure our way out of ourselves, and we wouldn’t embody those beliefs and skills if someone else were always taking the opportunity away from us.
- Trust. Trust in what’s bigger than you, the wisdom of the land and the magic of the moment. The growth opportunities that come from unknown sources guide us to a deeper level of consciousness.
I could have been the helper or the rescuer that day, but it didn’t feel right. I wanted to follow my internal tendency to “save”. When I started to move towards that tendency, there was something inside me that said to pause and observe. I took the opportunity to ask myself what I noticed when I waited and connected. It was clear that I was meant to slow down, appreciate, acknowledge my role and then continue in gratitude, filled with a powerful piece of learning.
