Baby birds, struggle and mud
Things have been hard. Not going to lie. Getting this little farm rehabbed and functioning is a challenging project on a good day. Throw on top of that 20” of rain between mid-November and mid-January, and rain pretty much ever weekend since then and it’s a recipe for what feels like a disaster in the moment.
I almost broke yesterday. I needed another round bale for the horses, on the heels of over an inch of rain that fell on the completely saturated ground on Saturday. But they needed hay, and I couldn’t keep tossing small bales out. It was windy, gusts up to 40mph, and cold. And then there were snow squalls that started to get kicked up (that was not in my bingo card for the day). And while attempting to drop the round bale over the fence (can’t go through the pasture, see aforementioned mud situation), the wind almost blew the tractor over.
It scared both of us. Thankfully the bale, the tractor, Ed and the fence (and me) were all ok, but there was a moment of time in there where it was almost not ok. With the added stresses that we’ve had lately outside the farm both of us are just about at the end of our rope.
This isn’t for sympathy. In times like these what we have to keep reminding ourselves (and each other) is that it is always challenging right before it gets better. It’s darkest before the dawn. Seeds germinate in the dark. The baby birds get kicked out of the nest and have to learn on their own how to bird.
There is no amount of growth that can happen without discomfort.
This is where we can take a lesson from the animals and from the wild world in being able to have grace in the midst of it. We can see the struggle in the baby bird’s efforts to fly. We never notice the struggle of the plants. We admire their pretty green shoots coming up, and never realize the amount of effort that it took to get there (all in the dark no less. There’s probably a whole ‘nother conversation in there that could be had about our assumptions about that!).
So often when we hit these points in our lives we make the struggle wrong. We make ourselves wrong for having the struggle in the first place. Which only adds to our burden (cough my burden cough) and makes the whole experience that much harder. The baby birds struggle, but they don’t make the struggle mean anything.
The answer, while not easy, is simple. We need to get back to reconnecting with source energy. Call it God, divinity, the universe, source, whatever. It is there waiting for us to reconnect and tap back in. When we can take the time to do that, despite what’s going on around us, so much more information and ease opens up to us.
Getting stuck in the bad feelings is never the answer, and yet it is so easy to do.
So the next time you find yourself in the overwhelm, see if you can find the space to pause and spend a few minutes reconnecting. Put your feet in the dirt, connect with the energy of the trees, work with your pet to reconnect to that universal energy stream. There are dozens of different techniques that will get you there, so seek out whichever one works the easiest for you in the midst of the chaos and struggle.
What nature, baby birds, and seeds teach us is that the struggle never goes away. That is part of growth and living. When we can embrace that, then when the sun comes out it will be all that much brighter and more beautiful when we are soaring.
