Heroes Not Zombies

I love both Spring and Autumn because then change is so obvious.

When the leaves start to change colour going from green to vivid red as they’re doing in this photo, they’re beautiful and they grab my attention. I mean how could I miss a spectacle like this?

I know that over the next few days, or couple of weeks, these changes will be everywhere. I’ll be surrounded by reds, yellows and gold.

Change is perhaps THE most fundamental characteristic of reality. Nothing never changes. But often change is so gradual or slow that we don’t notice it. We become familiar with our everyday and slip comfortably into not noticing.

But change is underway all the same. I’m changing. You’re changing. Everything you can see, hear, smell, taste or touch is changing,

When we notice change we wake up. We become aware. And in that moment we can experience the flow of Life, the movement of energy, the cycles of living, the seasons of Nature.

I love it when that happens but it’s not always an experience of pure joy. There can be tinges of sadness in there as we become aware of what is going. Or even more so, change can be felt mainly as loss and pain. It’s not so beautiful then and we might resist. We might refuse to accept that change has happened and experience the pain and sadness more intensely.

But then we adapt. Because time doesn’t stand still. We change along with the new losses and/or gains.

Isn’t that the true marvel of living? That life is complex, so nuanced, so full of paradoxical phenomena, often active and swirling around at the same time. So we experience the reality of a multitude of emotions often over extremely short periods of time.

“This too shall pass” is the old saying and depending on the circumstances that might fill us with relief or sadness, with joy or fear, with delight or regret. Or a lively mix of all that and more.

But that’s the beauty of reality…..and we develop the necessary life skills of acceptance, gratitude and awareness through exactly these experiences of change.