Time to Balance with Nature

Both The Byrd's and the Bible tell us there is a time to be born, a time to die, a time to weep, a time to laugh, a time to dance -- a time for every purpose under the sun. When the musical group The Byrd's released their song Turn, Turn, Turn in 1965 they made it easy to sing along to this verse from Ecclesiastes. Even set to music, these simple, yet profound, words remind us of one core teaching: Life on Earth constantly changes.
Staying connected to Earth's changing rhythmic motion and fundamental principles can help us live in greater harmony with the world around us and in turn, develop increased inner wisdom, balance, and peace. The pace of our modern technology-filled lives sometimes makes it challenging to find what we need most to balance our lives. Everywhere we go, from the gym to the local restaurant, television sets with programs turned on bombard us. Computers bring an overload of information from the Internet and e-mail 24-7, and people can call our cell phones or text us anywhere and at anytime. While technology helps us in so many ways, it also disconnects us from the external and internal place where we can most easily find inner wisdom, balance, and peace -- nature.
Nature's calming and healing energy helps us align with our own inner nature, which balances us vibrationally, thus maximizing our capacity to handle the stresses of our increasingly technology-filled world. Not only does nature harmonize our energy field, her fundamental principles increase our wisdom and teach us about our lives. As Earth's seasons turn and change, we learn from nature that our lives, too, follow this same rhythm of constant transformation. Sometimes the shift in life from one thing to another expresses in a subtle and gradual change and sometimes it is quick and impactful. Yet the undercurrent of motion keeps the energy turning.
Earth's constant rotation through the seasons of the year provides a wonderful organic teaching of the natural balance process through nature's examples of light and dark and life and death. Starting with the dark, fallow time in winter as the earth rests and rejuvenates, moving to the gradual warming of the soil with the light of the sun until it heats enough for planting in the spring, the light then moves into the full brightness of the summer growing time. Then, the light gradually recedes to the fall harvest, and finally diminishes until the crops die and the earth settles in for its period of dark winter rejuvenation once again.
For most of us, life follows this same pattern as we gestate in the womb's darkness, are born and grow from childhood into adulthood and then into our elder years, moving on to our death and our next expression. The growth and change, as well as the light and dark phases of our lives, happen over time as we move from phase to phase.
If we learn from nature we realize that too much light and outer world activity leaves little time for rest or quiet and burns out our systems. Our busy external lives require balance found during the darkness, the peaceful rest times. Our quiet inner time creates the place where we are receptive to inner voice of Spirit, and where seeds of our desires are planted, developed, and grown. When we learn to work with and appreciate the light and bright times of life that bring us into the outer world for growth, joy, and creativity, as well as those times that take us deep into our inner darkness for rejuvenation, and physical and emotional healing, we create inner balance.
Discovering ways to honor both the light and dark times of life creates more trust in life itself. Nature exists in a constant state of balancing light and dark as well as creating the new and letting go of the old. When we spend enough time connected to the natural world and the rhythm of nature, we are filled with this understanding and the grounded wisdom of Earth. Nature, softly reminds us that life and death are interconnected just as are the light and the dark. And each year spring follows winter. Nature's processes take time, and we cannot rush her season. However, when we listen to her, we hear her urge us to trust that following the time to rest and heal once again comes a time to sing and dance.