Remembering What Has Always Been There

What a season of grief and quiet helped me see more clearly

My return to Wisdom Seasons has taken longer than I originally planned.

Life asked me to step away for a little while.

My little Snowdrop

Last month, my kitten Snowdrop died. She was only nine months old, and although her time with me was far too short, she had found a very big place in my heart. Losing her brought a depth of grief and sorrow that I simply needed time to sit with...

I became aware that I was not okay to meet the world in the way I normally do. I needed to pull inward. And rather than pushing myself to show up before I was ready, I chose to honor what I recognized within myself.

I believe this, too, is part of intentional living.

Sometimes living with intention means moving forward with clarity and purpose. And sometimes it means having the awareness to recognize what is true within us right now and giving ourselves permission to meet that truth with grace.

As difficult as this time has been, something meaningful has emerged from the quiet.

I've come to recognize that some of life's deepest lessons aren't necessarily new lessons at all. Sometimes life brings us back to something we've been learning for years, inviting us to experience and integrate it at a deeper level.

Over these past few weeks, I've received many reminders of something that has been woven through my life for as long as I can remember. I've spoken before about remembering who we are, but lately I've begun to understand that phrase in a much deeper and more personal way.

I feel as though I am remembering something about who I came here to be.

As a child, I knew very simply that God is love, and I made a conscious decision that I wanted to find and understand love. Well, that sent me on quite a journey.

Today, as I write this on my 66th birthday, after 66 years in what I've recently begun affectionately calling "Earth School", I can look back and see that seed running through my entire life. And I can see more clearly where it has been leading me.

The idea of peace, love, and harmony has been with me since my youth.

Years later, I came across a word that gave those three ideals a name:

Peloha—Peace, Love, Harmony. 

It became a little shorthand in my family for something I had never really stopped believing was possible.

More recently, my daughter added another ha for happiness: Peloha~ha.

I've realized that little addition belongs.

For me, the second ha has come to represent joy—cheerfulness, lightheartedness, laughter, delight. Because these, too, belong to a whole and meaningful life.

And so, as I begin this 67th trip around the sun, I find myself returning to something that isn't really new at all. It feels more like a remembering.

Cultivate peace.

Remember love.

Establish harmony.

Incorporate joy.

Peace begins with what we cultivate within ourselves and in the spaces around us.

Love calls us back to the wisdom of the heart—to remembering the love from which we come and learning, imperfectly and humanly, to live from it.

Harmony invites us into right relationship: within ourselves, with Spirit, with one another, and with the larger web of life to which we all belong.

And Joy reminds us to laugh, delight, connect, and make room for lightheartedness along the way.

This is becoming a resolve for me; a way I want to meet my own life and a practice I want to explore more deeply within our Wisdom Seasons community.

I don't yet know all the forms that will take. And perhaps I don't need to.

Wisdom, after all, is revealed step by step.

For today, I am simply grateful to be taking another step. Not thankful that Snowdrop died, but I am deeply grateful to recognize that even in my sorrow, my heart is held in love. I'm grateful for what this quiet time has helped me remember. And I'm grateful to be returning to this little corner of the world we are tending together.

Perhaps there is something in your own life that isn't asking to be discovered for the first time but remembered. May we all continue learning how to meet life as it is—with greater peace, deeper love, growing harmony, and plenty of room for joy.

Willow