It’s May, and my poppies are starting to bloom. I expect they’ll be in full flush in the coming weeks.
A male robin is clearly staking our tiny backyard as his territory, evidenced by his perch on the fence behind the poppies.
His mate is most likely tending a hidden nest in the trees above, though I haven’t pinpointed the location yet, I’m guessing that she’s sitting on a clutch of eggs as I’ve not seen her this week but the male is clearly attentive.
I love this, watching the land and all her inhabitants go through their cycles.
If you recall in our last newsletter, I shared that our family received notice from requiring us to move for July 1st. Today I’m feeling tremendously grateful as we’re celebrating having just signed a lease on a place closer to the ocean and with a bigger yard! There’s even a cherry tree in the abandoned lot behind our new home, and roses out front. We’re definitely feeling both relief & gratitude AND sadness to leave behind our old place.
Sometimes it’s like this – the phase you’re moving into is, in fact, more of what you wanted. But there is still a grieving process that happens with every single transition, even the positive ones.
After all, with any change, we leave behind not only the place, person or thing we’re letting go of, but also who we were in relationship to them.
With every loss, life change and transition, there is ALWAYS both grief and praise.
Wait…praise?? What do you mean there is always PRAISE…?
How can there be praise when we have an earthshaking loss – like losing a partner or child, or receiving a terminal diagnosis?
To paraphrase author & teacher, Martin Prechtel,
“When we are grieving that which is still living with us, we call that PRAISE. (That is gratitude – to recognize that everything we love we will lose. To recognize that grief and love go hand in hand, like old married people.) And when we are praising that which we have lost – when we are remembering the beauty of that One – we call that grief.”
So there is always praise – it just comes in different forms. And when we become fully ripe human beings, we recognize that there is also always grief.
This is what it is to love. This is life.
May you be receiving just the right amount of support to allow you to feel all of it fully.
With love,
Josea & the Dark Woods Team
