Tag: true self

The Process of Change

I was fortunate to visit the Grand Tetons in late September for a conference one year. The experience while we were outside was an immersion of the senses. The combination of the smell of burning wood from nearby wildfires and the explosion of fall leaf colors reminded me of the cycles of disturbance and seasons. The autumn colors within the valley were a tapestry of yellows, reds, and maroons that revealed themselves from behind a curtain of thick smoke. The colors were so vibrant that my eyes could not fully absorb the richness and beauty.  The Snake River flowed through the flat valley between dramatically steep mountain sides over smoothed rock making calm gurgling sounds. The water level was shallow since the spring snow melt was months past, but the water was still cold to the touch. The dry shrub crunched underfoot, which released whiffs of sage. I wanted to be there in that unfolding of summer until snow started falling. Like the leaves, however, I could not stay for long. I was only there for a few days and had to attend talks. I’m sure within a week or two those leaves began falling to the ground as the trees prepared for the coming winter.

As temperatures become cooler and the daylight length shortens within the temperate regions (found between the poles and the tropics) of the world, deciduous trees begin preparing for winter. Enzymes, triggered by cooler temperatures, start sealing off the boundary between the woody twig and the base of the leaf stem. As this occurs, photosynthesis stops, and chloroplasts – the cells that cause the leaf to look green and carry out the photosynthesis process – are no longer needed. We see leaves as green because the red and blue wavelengths are absorbed, but green light is reflected. Once the chloroplasts die, however, other colors are reflected, resulting in the reds, yellows, and oranges of autumn. The leaves will then be cut off from the tree and drop to the ground.

This leaf fall process protects the tree during the cold winter months. If the deciduous leaves were to remain alive on the tree, they would be at risk for freezing and would facilitate the accumulation of snow and ice, which could cause limbs to break under the added weight. Leaves during winter would also not be as effective at photosynthesizing  because of the shorter amount of daylight and less direct sunlight, while at the same time they would be losing moisture through the stomata (tiny holes within the leaf). For the health of the tree, the leaves die and fall to the ground before winter. This process also benefits the organisms that live below the tree. Leaves will break down and add nutrients back into the soil. If a stream is nearby, the leaves serve as food to some aquatic organisms. This death and loss actually contributes to new growth. 

Change is often a process, not something that happens within an instant. Leaves do not just pop off of trees. That is usually what we see, our perception of the process, but it actually takes a while for that break between the leaf stem and the tree branch to occur. Enzymes trigger cells to severe the stem from the branch, then those cells have to grow, photosynthesis stops, the tree seals the cut, and then the leaf falls at some point. Some leaves even hold on throughout the fall and into winter, whereas others snap off before the official first day of autumn. Likewise, we can expect some of our “leaves” to rather easily snap off while others will take time.

Practices such as centering prayer, meditation, and mindfulness can help us with this process. We free up space in our heads and hearts when we are able to let go of anger, clinging to control, desiring others’ approval, thinking we are the worst person on the planet, thinking we are the best person on the planet, etc. This process can be quite challenging and take a lifetime of work.

(Image: Tulip tree leaf on the forest floor)

Homing Instinct

I walk into a grocery store with three items on my list and walk out an hour later. And it is not because I bought way more than I planned but because I walked through the entire store five times looking for my three items. I can never remember where they house peanut butter, or why cheeses are located in two different sections. I know pita chips are in a strange place, but where…? So an hour later, four items purchased (I had to add chocolate after the stress of searching for peanut butter for 20 minutes, the internal debate over whether or not I should ask for help, the questioning of how my life was being spent), I make it out to the parking lot and try to remember where I parked my car.

Meanwhile… slow moving turtles and salamanders will make their way over mountain ridges and through dangerous obstacles to return home if they are displaced. The red-spotted newt will travel miles to make its way back to its home pond by orienting itself using smells and an inner magnetic compass. Birds and butterflies can travel thousands of miles over new territory to make their way home or to a wintering site. The science behind such feats is not fully understood, but species have this “homing instinct” in which they use Earth’s magnetic field, smells, topography, or their relative position to the sun or night sky to navigate home or to a migration location.

We humans also have an innate “homing” instinct, and I came upon this opinion the hard way. Several years ago I felt as if my soul was dying and screaming for help and I helplessly stood by watching it happen, not even fully aware of the implications. I was deadening my very being just to function. I tried to fill my yearning with a relationship and gaining ground in my career, but then they were not enough. Nothing could fill the longing, and I lost track of even what I was longing for. I began looking for something more, but I didn’t even know what. I had lost myself and didn’t know what to do.

It took many aspects of my life falling apart to make a change. It has taken several years and many therapy sessions to even begin to reset. The losses have been numerous, but without losing many aspects of what and who I thought I was, I would not have realized that I was not those things. I was not my job, my relationship, my health, or my location. It is quite freeing to realize these things, although quite painful. It sounds very cliché, but it really took losing major aspects of myself to begin to find out who I truly am. I do not mean to imply that it was easy or that I have reached any sort end point.

The longing, I believe in large part, was a yearning for a return to who I truly am, my true self, who I am deep down. I had moved so far away in search of what I thought I wanted, that I left behind who I was. Yet, without leaving and searching, I do not know if I would have realized who I was or where “home” is. If we do not venture beyond our comfort zones, we won’t know where those boundaries of our comfort zone are, and if we don’t leave our “home” location, we won’t have the experience of learning how to find our way to it. Maybe this process is a homing instinct for us – the yearning for finding our true selves.

Birds, butterflies, and salamanders make it look so easy, but as usual, humans seem to blunder along a bit more before figuring it out. Our culture and egos cloud our view. We often do not stop long enough to even realize we are searching for something we deeply long for, and if we do, we do not know where to begin looking. We desire something of meaning, but go down many unfulfilling roads. Society gives us an endless number of wrong signals and supposed answers. One of the difficulties is, however, that we must find our own way back to our true self. We can do this by searching for what authentically speaks to our souls or essence, and this often involves learning how to even do that. After years of all sorts of voices yelling for your attention, the whisper of your own inner voice is hard to hear. Some find it again in meditation or contemplative prayer, some in nature, some in exercise, or some combination of practices, there are multiple ways to begin listening. While it may feel impossible at first, like butterflies and salamanders, I believe we have it in us to find our way home.

(Image: a red-eft [juvenile eastern newt] in West Virginia)