Happy November!
Here in the Bay Area, we’ve been soaking in the rains of recent storms. It’s quite a shift from fire season. Within five days of our first major downpour, the tiniest hints of green grass sprout from the ground.
Everything looks and feels dramatically different. Which is such a great reminder of how things can and do change.
This morning, I was hiking with a friend along a trail that circumambulates one of the several lakes nestled on Mt. Tamalpais. The ridge that climbs up from the lake towards the top of the mountain is covered by a thick and tangled forest of bramble, coastal oaks, redwoods, and douglas fir. That’s how it’s always been to me in the hundreds of times I’ve traveled this path.
But recently, forest rangers have been doing their fire maintenance here, clearing undergrowth and deadwood. And so today, I saw the ridge in an entirely new way.
A forest that once seemed dark and impenetrable is now just a hillside with trees dispersed here and there. Where once you couldn’t see past the thicket at the outer edge, now you can see clearly up the slope, through the trees, to the very top of the ridge.
It strikes me that life can be a lot like that sometimes.
There’s an area you fear to tread. Maybe it’s a truth that feels hard to acknowledge, or a belief that wounds your tender heart, or a way of being that disconnects you from you. You wonder how you will ever enter, much less overcome this thing that seems so intimidating, so forbidding.
At some point, though, the bushwhacking begins. You take a step into the thicket and — little by little, or sometimes in fell swoops — you clear out those old nagging energies and beliefs that have limited your movement and perception.
Once you clear the hillside, you have perspective. You can see what is authentic and life-giving. What is of essence. You. There’s this beautiful sense of space, breath, and movement. What once caused fear in you is now filled with vitality and new growth.
And, perhaps with some amusement, you realize that the dark, foreboding forest was always just a hillside waiting to be discovered. 🌳 🙂
I hope you have a wonderful November, and…
If you feel called, please join me for a free, live 20-minute meditation that I offer every Thursday at noon PST (3 pm ET). It’s an opportunity to ground, connect inward and reset your space. (And maybe clear out some old deadwood 😁 ) No meditation experience is necessary. No registration is required. Come as you are and meditate with us! You can join these Thursday meditations through my FaceBook group Sensitive + Strong over here.
With love,
Elizabeth
PS – Join me on Thursdays at noon PST for a free, live 20-minute meditation. Reconnect with you. Reset your day and week. It all happens over here.
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