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Snow has been falling since yesterday.  Being near the water we often don’t get as much as the rest of the region but this February a beautiful blanket of white surrounds me.  I have always loved snow, it changes the landscape, it changes how we get around. Snow slows down our fast pace life, it clears the air, cleans the roads and muffles sounds.  I live in an house with an old yard. I have always enjoyed my matured landscape, this snowstorm is changing it. The wind is participating in that change. My dog is happy to be outside, he has been busy digging under the snow and carrying around branches that have fallen.  He is not interested in coming in.

This snowstorm is both pleasure and discomfort as I assess the damages to the trees that have been part of my life the past seven years, I am especially attached to the lilacs.  Lilacs have been part of my life since childhood, I planted one when we bought our first house, when we moved to this house I was very pleased to see that they would be part of my life again.  I love the shape of the flowers, the soft smell they emit and the interesting sinew of the branches. As I look around, it saddens me to see that my poor old lilacs and other trees are paying the price of the weight of the wet snow.  All the personal growth I have gone through is allowing me to to accept and work through all the feelings I experienced when I first saw the broken trees. It is helping me cope with what has happened to my garden. I can look at all the broken limbs and know in my heart that my old yard has been through many storms over the years and has been thriving in spite of those.  Like me it is still there but different. The changes will be beneficial for new growth and new plants. The snow has reminded me to put in practice what I have learned. It reflects a little what I have been through in the last few years.

I cannot undo what has happened.  The resilience that I have nurtured is allowing me to accept what cannot be changed.  My Self is reminding me of all the positive things that are happening in my life, to be present in the moment, to savor it, to appreciate life instead of things and to move away from thinking of things as “my or mine”.   Letting go of thinking of the “my” makes it easier to let in what is truly important and to let go of my attachment to things. By using “the” instead of “my” I can accept change much more easily. I am no longer feeling sorry for myself or for what has happened to the garden.  I can look forward to the outdoor workout I will be getting while cleaning up the fallen wood. Sometimes we need to be reminded to look inside of ourselves rather than outside of ourselves to see all that is there. I can now appreciate the beautiful snowscape that mother nature has brought.   Branches are still falling around the periphery of the field. I can hear the cracking sound they make as they seperate from the trunk. I can only witness and appreciate the force of gravity that pulls them toward the ground. As I stand firmly on the ground on my two feet, I feel blessed for all that I have learned about myself.  I love to step in the new snow to make new foot prints, the old footprints in the snow help me move faster. In life it is better to step forward and create something new rather than be mired in the past. As time goes by it gets much easier to step out of the past. The past has become the base of the pyramid of my life. I wish you lots of joy as you create new tracks.