Pause & Reflect
Updated: Nov 14, 2021
Who are we really? What is ‘real?’
As Christmas nears, I notice in myself a constant back and forth between belief and disbelief, fear and trust, control and powerlessness. Not everything about this journey is joyful. It has, in some ways, completely uprooted my identity. I notice that it’s very difficult to explain to others what I mean by this. I’m still me, with my same interests, values, hobbies, likes and dislikes, etc. Yet, I often find myself saying to my most trusted confidants, “It’s like I don’t even know who I am anymore.” And that’s real, and it’s a little scary. It’s also a little hard to name exactly what about my identity feels so uprooted because I do also feel so much the same. With some contemplation, I learn that my human self is the same; it’s my soul self that’s different. What I’m discovering is that we don’t become something else when we die. We already ARE more than we realize. All of us.
Who are we really? What is ‘real?’ Are we something more than we think we are and our human conditioning has just prevented us from experiencing senses beyond just our traditional five? Don’t many animals have this ‘other sense?’ We hear about the animals that flee before there’s any evidence of an approaching tsunami or other weather disaster. How did they know? How about the monarch butterfly that intuitively migrates thousands of miles to the same forests each year? What are the natural forces that foster these senses? What natural forces are within us as humans that we are asleep to?
Nature defined: The natural forces that control what happen in the world; A creative and controlling force in the universe; An inner force or the sum of such forces in an individual; The external world in its entirety.
I was pondering all the questions above one afternoon while in the dentist chair, and I received an answer that didn’t come from me. "It’s Nature’s Way.”
Maybe as humans we’ve lost our oneness with nature. If all of nature is a network of connections, and we are also a part of nature, why do we think we defy the natural order of things? Maybe how we identify with the word ‘nature’ and the first images that creates in our minds (Earth and its features), is in need of expansion. Maybe there is a natural creative and controlling force in the universe that interacts with us whether we know it or not, and maybe that same force also resides within us all.
Nature’s Way is beautiful. Read on and be inspired by the journey. The way is through the heart.
