Learning to Bend

I saw this, and I was gut-punched at first. And then my body said, “Oh… right. That…”

“That is also an option.”

I think the majority of my suffering has come from trying to hold things still. Keep myself the same. Keep other people the same. Keep EVERYTHING the same. It felt like there was safety in that.

But the world moves. The seasons change. The wind comes whether we approve of it or not, because every THING and every BODY is temporary. It has always been that way, and it will always be that way.

And the trees know that, so they don’t fight it.
The grass doesn’t tense up or try to be strong.
Nature lets the wind just move on through.

I realized today that I learned to stiffen instead. To brace for loss. Prepare for impact. I learned to fight the wind in order to try to control the outcome. To protect my softness by becoming stone.

But the unchanging is its own kind of pain. And I have cracked myself wide open at times just trying not to bend. To keep everything just as it is.

So today I am sitting with the thought that maybe the point isn’t to stop the wind. Maybe the work is just letting myself sway, especially when things are beyond my control. Maybe I can allow change to touch me, without assuming it will destroy me.

And maybe we are still beautiful, even when we’re in motion. Maybe that is the whole point.