This letting go business is tough.
When we let go of something, how do we know something better will come? What happens if it’s gone forever?
Whenever I start to doubt, I turn to Nature for assurance. Nature seems to be a wonderful reflection for us humans.
In Carlsbad, California there is a place called The Flower Fields where they grow acres and acres of ranunculus. From March through May, the fields are full with every color of flower: red, orange, yellow, white, pink, even purple, as far as you can see.
But after the season, the farm workers harvest the seeds from the crop and plow the fields down. They fumigate all the beds to be sure to kill everything. And they let the soil rest.
Through the winter the fields are empty, colorless, waiting.
In early spring, new seeds are planted by hand, row after row, the workers trusting that the coming year’s crop will bloom as colorful and beautiful as the year before. While previous harvests strongly support the possibility, there is no guarantee.
But the flowers certainly wouldn’t grow if the farmers didn’t first clear the fields.
It’s the same with us.
We have to let go of the old to make space for the new. We need to sit in that space of fallow fields, allowing our own ground to rest before something new can grow.
For the past 6 months I’ve been working with an amazing coach. She has inspired me to really step into the bigger life I want to live. While I’d love to keep working with her, the programs she is offering this coming year don’t fit my needs.
And so I am letting go.
I’m a little sad, a little anxious about flying solo, but I’m hoping that I’ll find a new coach who will continue to push me, encourage me and speak my language. Still, this place of in-between is a little unsure and uncomfortable.
There is a strong, old tree in my backyard that blooms with amazing purple-blue spiked flowers in the spring. Throughout the summer, my yard is sprinkled with lilac petals and I feel like I am living in a watercolor painting.
Last week, the gardener came and cut the tree back. Way back. It’s thick trunks now stand like plain brown poles, not a hint of a flower or seed. And I worry that the gardener made a mistake, that he cut too much back. That it will stand like that forever, never blooming again.
And I wonder if I have made a mistake, letting go of one coach before I have found another.
But then I think about The Flower Fields and I remember to trust the ways of nature.
I’m sure you did the right thing. There’s never a guarantee for any of our crops, or our projects. Other than the guarantee that seems to be our birthright as human beings: connection with the divine. You are safe, Ruth, I am positive 🙂 You might even consider the possibility that you already have your “coach” within, if you listen.
I just worked in my garden today, and the soil is not only mostly empty, but covered with a thick, regenerative mulch of decaying leaves. I wish those fields weren’t fumigated at all, but allowed to lie truly fallow and recover. But then, I’m a weirdo who thinks nature actually knows what She’s doing and I try to grow things according to her wisdom 😉
Thanks, Meredith, for your affirmative support. I do know there is a coach within all of us, and still, I think we tend push further and work harder when we are accountable to someone else. What will you plant for spring?
I love this! It takes courage to listen to our knowing and truth and follow it (letting go), allowing our lives to unfold… This is a perfect metaphor and reminder to help me relax into and remember to trust the process.