The epic storms of last month showed me the power of natures teaching that all things are impermanent. Overnight we can awaken to a completely different landscape than the day before. In nature’s case, our arroyos once wide and flat expansive areas overnight became deep fissures from the heavy rain that caused waterfalls to pour and rush down the sides of Shadow Mesa. We awoke to a new normal. Where we once could walk freely now is a deep chasm dividing our arroyo in two.
Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, PhD, the spiritual head of the Himayalan Institute once said, “All teaching is revealing, all becoming is unfolding”. As in Nature as in our human life. No thing or person is excluded from the change. And yes, those experiences do reveal who we are. I was amazed by the power of it all and also feeling a sense of loss by the completely new landscape I was witnessing that morning. I didn’t know how much I took for granted that things would remain the same. How a sense of ownership had developed around something that didn’t ever belong to me in the first place. Then I looked to my pup, Abby, who was a little confused about her new fetch playground. After brief trepidation, she was happily bounding in and out of the deep arroyo with effortlessness, relishing in exploring the new scents unearthed by the rain and easily finding places where she could scale up to cross over. Then not missing a beat she was running free chasing her beloved ball. Oh my little Guru! The boundless joy of non attachment and being present to what is instead of what was or yet to be. Let go and Let GOD is another way of putting it. We silly humans think we can control everything. Dogs, and all animalkind, do just that: they go with the flow.
Our becoming is ever unfolding. Who we are is ever being revealed. Sometimes we need to be reminded that all is impermanent. And that pure joy can be found when we surrender and embrace the change, ever keeping sight on what is beloved to us.