The Wisdom of Droughts
I step on to my lawn, bare feet touching the earth and the golden hued grass crunches beneath my feet, the cracks in the soil are felt in the soles of my feet. It is September in the Texas hill country and it has been a long, hot, seemingly never ending summer. Everywhere you go you can’t help but talk about it.
“Oh ya, its miserable out there, if only it would rain!” “God, this heat is oppressive.”
I find myself sharing this much more often than I wish I was. I suppose I should thank the weather for being an awkward space filler in conversations…I jest.
I realized my experience of something will always stay stuck if I don’t find the depth of a thing, if I don’t find the spiritual gift of something lurking behind an unwanted experience. So I want to share the wisdom I have gleaned while sitting on my porch for the hour in my morning before its just too miserable to stay outside.
For those of you that do not live here, there is still wisdom in this for you too. Because external droughts are a deep mirror of internal experiences. Weather…ah hem Whether (all about the jokes today) or not you feel it in all areas or just one, a drought is when life seems to be falling away. It’s the sensation of waiting for inspiration, opportunity, or something new to spring up but it doesn’t, in fact things seem to be dwindling, your desire for more is there but you feel at a standstill.
Sure there are things you can do, but it feels like effort for little reward. Sort of like my garden which has mostly turned to crispy tomato stalks and herbs that dried on the vine.
We have all had these experiences, some area that seems like it should be flourishing but it isn’t. And if you are living in an area with drought do not underestimate how much our environment affects us and how much we mirror it. I know life has been slower for me too.
If your in a flourishing climate, know that there are areas of life that may be not flourishing within. Your creative life, your love life, money, health… anything that can not seem to move forward.
But there is a deep wisdom in all things if you look hard enough. Many things that die back in a time like this are not fit for who you are becoming, other things will return in a new season but this is a deep clearing energetically. A purge by fire. If you are trying to transform your life, having the things that once defined you stripped down to raw exposed soil or soul, can teach you what truly matters.
If you are on a spiritual path, having your desires for you external life dwindle away, your resources go from surplus to survival, will teach you either fear or deeper trust. When you can not rely on the external you must rely on the internal. From the physical to the spiritual. Eventually the fear must subside for the sake of survival. A great gift.
There is a reason many great spiritual quests are done in desserts, when the obvious modes of thriving vanish, you must rely on the wisdom within to guide you to the well-spring.
When any area of our life falls in to drought, it allows us to reassess the landscape. To decide what really matters to us. Often our desires that we allow ourselves are based on convenience and what seems to be obvious based on the current situation. Like a promotion at the job you’re at rather than your dream career. Or one more therapy session with your unsatisfying relationship rather then moving towards the brave unknown and the hope of a beautiful love story. But when the job is lost and the partner gone, you may panic and try and fill it but when nothing comes… then what?
Then after a while of stress you hopefully surrender to what is, and if you do this long enough and you start to trust that there is a path within you, that it will rain again, on a new landscape within you, then you start to dream of what it could look like not based on what it was.
Drought teaches us what we really loved about what is now gone and what we really don’t miss at all. It purifies our desires.
And at the very same time it humbles us. The slightest bit of rain on this rocky soil feels like a miracle. It’s cherished and celebrated like a love returning home from battle, always believing it would come home but worried it might not.
One cool day will remind you of the inspiration you were missing. If you have ever struggled financially and then suddenly got a new financial opportunity, you know this feeling, immense joy. You celebrated something that you would one day take for granted again.
The first meal after a fast, the first shower after camping, these are special because the novelty of the mundane returned for a moment.
I have a friend who has had her precious baby in NICU for months, and while almost all mothers desire to bring their baby home, can you imagine the celebration that will occur when she rocks her to sleep, only to wake again to her cry. She won’t think of the exhaustion of being awoken in those first few days, she will think of how she longed to be awoken by that sound, prayed for it every night, she will wonder if its real for a moment and she will pick her up and celebrate while quietly soothing her tiny courageous infant. Her miracle that survived the drought of being born too early. As I write this, I am remembering that this baby was born about the time the heat climaxed and the rains stopped. Perhaps she will come home when the rain falls a little and the temperatures drop.
These are the gifts. We need not feel bad for getting accustomed to our abundance though, but we must find a way to celebrate it and when we can’t, when it all blends in as cluttered luxuries, we may need to find a way to experience a drought. Live primitively for a while, take a spiritual retreat or just cut the excess for a time as a practice. See what you find. Go minimal, do a mone diet, rent a primitive cabin or camp for a week or weekend.
If you are in drought or in lushness may you find something to celebrate in it with this wisdom. If you feel you have your own pattern that you can’t find the wisdom in, or cant see through the fog of your mind. Reach out for a reading, I am always here to help.
And as always, I love to hear from you so feel free to comment, share or reply! Would love to know how this impacted you.