Something strange happens to me in springtime. I look out of a window here or there and I see spring throwing her beauty around everywhere. She calls me to her. She calls me out, away from these lifeless walls, and into her blossoming bosom. I want to go. I feel sick with longing to be with her.
But sometimes I simply cannot go. I am rooted, both desperate to move and frozen in place. What is this?
I’ll tell you what this is. This is the thing within me that would prefer to shut myself away from spring’s touch than to have to expose myself to such an intensity of beauty and light. This is the thing within me that would prefer never to see spring than to see her, knowing that she will then be taken from me. This is the thing within me that is afraid of the magnificence of life and therefore needs to keep it at a distance.
And so sometimes I stay indoors, in the half-light, where things are duller and much less alive but yet somehow, horribly, more manageable.
We can live our whole lives this way, always turning away from the possibility of what our lives could be and choosing instead to live half hidden in the shadows. In many ways, this is an easier way to live, just as it is, in a strange way, easier for me to stay indoors than face the devastating beauty of spring. But it comes at a cost and that cost is high. The cost is never having the experience of fully stepping into our capacity and feeling truly alive.
We were not created to languish in front of screens and machines, to increasingly consume, paying wealthy corporations to diminish our life force further and further. We were created by the light to be the light and each and every one of us is the light.
But learning to shine is courageous work because when you get even a tiny glimpse of how bright and powerful your light truly is? Well, that can make you want to close the curtains and go back to sleep.
Now is not the time to go back to sleep. Now is the time to walk to the threshold of your back door and step out into spring’s embrace. It’s bright out there. But we can handle it. We were built for this. And we can do it together.
Love and courage,
Leah