This morning at 12:48 spring finally arrived. 

I am so relieved to see the increase in light and the rise in temperatures.  My spirit has risen also. 

I received this poem from a colleague of mine - Phil Okrend - who is a life coach in North Carolina. 

The Law of Cycles - Dancing to Nature’s Song

The world of nature moves

In rhythm, patterns and cycles

The passing of the seasons,

The movement of the stars,

The ebb and flow of the tides.

The seasons do not push one another;

Neither do clouds race the wind across the sky.

All things happen in

Their own good time

Rising and falling and rising

Like ocean waves,

In the circle of time.

From The Laws of Spirit by Dan Millman

Excerpt from “Seasons of Change”….

The new life of spring eventually evolves into the steady, strong growth of summer.  The baby animals that were born in the spring begin to mature through the summer.  The budding flowers are now in full bloom and once tender shoots have turned to strong stalks.

This can be an exhilarating time of “what ifs?” and “why nots?”  Some of the indicators that you’re in the season of growth may include excitement, increased clarity, confidence, you feel grounded in your life and self, you have a renewed sense of direction and are ready to move forward.

It’s a time to come into full bloom.

One of the challenges in transitions is when you find yourself smack dab in the middle of the transition - when the past no longer works and the future is not yet decided.  It can be a time of hopelessness.  A good friend sent me this link to Chris Heeter, a woman in Minnesota who leads wilderness trips.  I heard her speak a couple of years ago and was so impressed with her message.  Here is a poem she wrote about winter…..

It’s called the “dead of winter,”

single digit temperatures above or below zero, projected to last at least three weeks.But signs of spring abound. The cardinal and black capped chickadees have changed their winter tunes to spring songs. Black bear babies are arriving,all of 12 ounces at birth. And as we make our way around the sun,we’ve already gained 45 minutes of daylight since Solstice night. So even as we bundle and layer for the cold, the birds and the bears and even the sun remind us that spring is waiting just beyond winter’s long shadows. – Chris Heeter, Wilderness Guide, Author, Speakerwww.thewildinstitute.com

I have talked with four friends over the last few days.  These people have many traits in common.  They are funny, smart, thoughtful, and interesting people.  They also all believe they are boring. 

They don’t think like this the rest of the year.  Only now in January, in the middle of winter, have they decided they are boring.  I also am in the process of struggling with writing this blog because I have also caught the boring bug.  What do I possibly have to say that might be of interest to someone else?

I think it is the fault of winter - all that darkness, cold, snow and ice.  Come spring we will all find that once again we are funny, smart, thoughtful and interesting people! 

Silence is golden and a powerful way to listen to what your heart is saying amist the clamour of our world.  I just finished reading “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert.  One section of the book is about her time in an ashram in India and the remarkable insights it gave her.

I have had times during transitions that I simply craved for quiet so I could think and listen to myself - I could figure out what was going on in my life.  But having now lost my voice for going on 4 days, I crave the ability to speak out loud - to shout - to sing - or at least boss someone around a little.  But alas, I can’t.

I have had to be very judicious in what I communicate since it is so much work to write it down.  It has made me realize how much I talk and how little I actually say some days - and how my ability to talk is part of my profession.  (No one really wants a facilitator that can’t talk.)  Noise can be a distraction that allows us to avoid really think about what is happening.  Our radios, iPods, tv, cell phones keep us so busy do we really have time to think?

So while I understand that silence is golden, I must admit to getting a little tired of it.  Maybe some balance would be good.

You will see a category of “Life’s Transitions” that I’ve added on the blog.  This is a collection of others’ stories of transition and change - what they have experienced and learned on their own journeys. 

I believe deep in my soul the value of what we know ourselves and also what we learn from other experiences.  Experts are important in our world, but so are the wounded healers that live in each of us. 

Please share your own story of transitions and change. 

I moved back to my hometown after living a pretty amazing 15 years away in many different places.  I left my hometown as sort of a misfit, definitely uncool and not sure of who I was.  I sailed off to the Navy for four years, through relationships and friendships with amazing people, through 13 cities in 9 years, through college, and the opportunities that followed and all of those things eventually led me back to my roots.  I think I needed to bring it full circle in a way…to go back to the place where my journey began. I wanted to be married here and to have my baby here. The Black Hills have always been special to me. To me this place has always felt like my favorite sweatshirt on a Saturday; a place of easy familiarity and comfort.  

So, here I am. I’ve got a wonderful husband, a beautiful baby, a wonderful home, and a challenging career. I’m pretty much living the dream, right?   I am living the dream. I am truly “soles of my feet” happy.  However, one thing baffles me.  Ok, there are way more things that baffle me, but I want to talk about this particular thing. It seems to me and in more than one instance and with more than one person….I have changed.  I have gone away and had all of these amazing experiences and really come into my own. I have become what I feel is a woman of strength, courage and determination. I have had diverse friends and lived in cities. I have sailed the ocean blue.  Yet, it would seem that after all of that and coming back here….sometimes I’m perceived as who I was when I left. 

Let me illustrate.  I went to a funeral recently for a high school friend’s mother.  I was actually in a pretty serious car accident with this girl in high school and therefore had great respect and affection for her mother.  Anyway, I felt compelled to attend. It was a lovely service.  I was in the church lobby after the service and there were 2 girls (I guess we’re ladies now) who I also went to school with.  I was nowhere near their level of cool in high school and never included in their reindeer games for certain. Anyway, one of the girls comes up to me and very snottily said “what’s your name?”…I stammered and answered her and told her my maiden name and that we went to the same high school, They both sort of looked at me and clearly did not remember me in the least.  In that moment, I was 17 again and uncool. I was insecure, not pretty enough to be alive, and self conscious. I was actually transformed into someone I didn’t recognize…instantly.  

I wish I could say that this is the only time this has happened to me. It isn’t.  I have experienced this very phenomenon with family members, and other people who essentially knew me and remember me as someone other than the person I am today.  What is this called? How do I keep being the me I am today when confronted with someone else’s rendition of a “me” they knew in another era of my life? This has everything to do with change and people’s perceptions.  Are perceptions reality? I’m not through the woods on this one yet and I would appreciate any comments. I’m very bothered by the whole experience at the funeral. I cried all the way home from that funeral and I don’t know why.

Reading Naurine’s post made me think how very important humor is during times of transitions.  I think of her riding the bus 3 hours to get back to where they started. 

It seems as if you have at least 4 options - get mad, blame someone else, beat yourself up or just laugh and roll with the experience.

So last week was a bit of that “banana belt” that my husband promised me when convincing me to move to the Black Hills.  It was warm and sunny.  It almost felt like spring.  I found myself thinking that maybe winter was actually over.  Yes I know it is January, 7th in the upper Midwest.  So no, it wasn’t over.  But it got me thinking.

When Carol and I were developing our journal, Seasons of Change ( why yes of course you may purchase it - just go back to my home page and click on “journal”) we struggled with how to acknowledge that change is not neat, does not follow a straight line.  We wanted to include some exercises on how nonlinear the process of change is. 

The journal is arranged by seasons - it is linear in that way.  Autumn is followed by winter, which is followed by spring and summer.  There is definately a pattern and rhythm to change.  Transitions do follow that big pattern but there are anomalies along the way, which when we don’t expect them, they can throw us off balance.  Sometimes it feels like you take one step forward and two ( or twenty-two) steps back.

Just as you get a “spring-like” day in the middle of January, so will you experience change.  The Season of Quiet - Winter is a difficult time in transitions because this is the time when everything is so uncertain and confusing.  Most of us simply want to get out of it as fast as we can and so when that warm sunny January day arrives, it feels like, “WHEW-maybe this season is over”.   We may hope it is because it is hard, scary and uncomfortable to be in the Season of Quiet where nothing makes much sense.  But it is not.  So today it is cold and snowing and we’re back smack in the middle of winter.

But there is hope.  Spring always arrives.