Elinor grew up on an evergreen tree farm. Her parents and her grandparents before them were evergreen tree farmers. Young Elinor happened upon a story about cherry trees. She fell in love with cherry trees. She loved everything about cherry tress and determined that she was going to leave her boring old evergreen tree farming family and plant, grow and tend cherry trees for the rest of her life.
But I Practiced Holding the Vision and Feeling the Feelings
Off she went, setting up her own plot of land and sowing the seeds that she believed would give her cherry trees. The trees began to grow. Elinor watered them, weeded around them, fertilized them with cherry tree manure. She held the vision of her cherry tree orchard in her mind and was happy. Over time people gave her suggestions on how to improve the health of her cactuses. Elinor was mystified by these comments and continued to tend her trees. She was occasionally shocked that when she got near her trees she was pierced with prickles, but on she went. Little bit by little bit Elinor realized that the trees she had grown did not look like cherry trees and were in fact, not producing any cherries. When she finally saw that, indeed her trees were cactuses, she needed some time to process. At first she blamed herself. She obviously did something wrong and how could she be so stupid to plant the wrong seeds. And then she irrationally hated her cactuses because she did everything right to grow cherry trees, and well, how dare they!
Reality Wins. Every Time.
We have all, in some way, in some area of our lives been Elinor. Your cherry tree could be your body, your career, your relationship, something you wanted badly. Sometimes we choose what we think is the ‘right’ thing, build the image in our minds and enthusiastically work on making that thing happen. It is painful to realize what we were going for is in fact, never going to be the thing we were going for.
Life is a Creative Journey
Sometimes leaving the familiar and blazing your own trail looks like rebellion, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe there are enough evergreen trees planted. We may believe that the ‘reap what you sow’ parable is a condemnation; that somehow our ‘seeds’ are cursed or tainted; that we didn’t get what we wanted, but we got what we deserved. Or we feel less than because we ‘manifested’ something we weren’t going for concluding our ‘vibration’ is too ‘low’ and what we want is ‘higher.’ But what if what you grew, produced, created and/or manifested was exactly what you were meant to? If you are lucky to produce a cherry tree when you intended to produce a cherry tree, well that is awesome for you. Life’s a creative journey and what we create could be an unintended, but necessary, suprise.
A Continuous State of Perpetual Response to What Is
Once Elinor accepted that she had a crop of cactuses she realized she had some choices. She thought long and hard about how to respond to her reality. Eventually, Elinor studied how to tend and care for her cactuses. They soon flowered, reproduced and ended up supplying much needed food for the local cherry trees.
When we realize that we are part of a whole system and learn to respond as ourselves with in it, we live, in what is called a continuous state of perpetual response to what is. A rather exciting place.
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