Happy Sunday Evening Friends! I’m mixing up the format a little this week to share what my Wednesday posts are like. Wednesday post are for paid subscribers. I structure the essays similar to how I structure a spiritual direction session. It’s a way to explore how ordinary momspringffer us new inautumn, questions and loving direction.
“For there is nothing that grows or lives that can approach the feathery grace, the symmetry of form, or the lacy elegance of pattern of the Ferns: and to be blind to all this beauty is nothing less than calamitous.”
— Mary Oliver, from “More Evidence”
Setting the Scene:
Late Spring through late Autumn, if you come to my frontautumn two ferns, one on either side of the door, welcome you.
Ferns are my front-door plants of choice. In Japanese culture, ferns symbolize family and hope for the future. These simple plants seem like appropriate front door vegetation for their beauty and meaning.
As daylight wanes and the temperatures dip closer to freezing each autumn, I move my ferns inside. It has always felt like the right thing to do.
I don’t think they are native Idaho plants (I could be wrong…)
They seem tropical (but what do I know about plants?)
Each year, my ferns have died a slow, agonizing death inside. No matter if I place them by a window, away from light, or in a bathroom with steamy showers. They have not thrived or even survived in the comfy, warm habitat I tried to create.
This year, I thought if they were going to die anyway, I would leave them outside as an experiment. (I wasn’t optimistic, what do tropical plants know about Idaho winters?)
Imagine my surprise when, this week, I noticed the fronds greeting the sun on a warmer day after a few hours of direct afternoon sunshine!
Let Your Soul Arrive:
I kept opening my front door, checking on the ferns. Were they really not only surviving but looking better? Could it be right that they looked better after a harsh, cold winter outside than ever? Were these ferns going to be the ones that survived the winter? (It was blowing my mind!)
It was about the third time I opened the door to look at the ferns that something in my heart whispered, what abouspringferns?
It was my invitation to let my soul arrive, to see what spiritual direction the ferns had for me.
Spiritual Direction Question: How is Your Soul Moved?
I thought a comfy, protected, warm habitat would be best for the ferns. Instead of thriving, they withered, languished, slowly lost leaves, and fronds fell off until, when spring arrived, I was left with one defeated frond.
Reflecting on the fern, I realized it was a habitat issue. The environment where I thought a fern would thrive best was incorrect. It turns out that a cold, cloudy habitat do foster growth for ferns.
Maybe growth and thriving come in the shiny, warm sun and overcast, windy, cold, often bleak winter days.
Spiritual Direction: What is the Invitation or Practice?
When I realized that my ferns might survive and be better because of this winter, I started thinking about growth and habitats. The ferns invited me to ask some difficult, uncomfortable questions.
The first question that came to mind is, what habitat does my heart thrive in?
Followed by questions like:
What habitat do I think I won’t thrive in? (and might surprise me by the unexpected, unforeseen growth and depth that could occur.)
When (or Why) do I try to keep myself in a comfy, warm habitat when the growth I need might only come from cloudy, windy, cold days?
And, of course, why does it have to work this way? (ugh! Truth hidden in plain sight!)
Spiritual Direction: On Your Own
Habitat
noun
noun: habitat plural noun: habitats
the natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or other organism.
What is the natural habitat for your heart? Your soul?
Draw a picture, or write a list of the ideal habitat of your heart.
Consider what the habitat was in a season of significant emotional or spiritual growth.
Write a list of the characteristics of that environment. (The environment when you experienced significant growth.)
Consider how the two lists overlap and where they diverge. (Your ideal heart habitat and the habitat when you experienced significant growth.)
What does the comparison and contrast teach you about habitats for your most significant growth?
When we walk slowly, the world can fully appear. Not only are the creatures not frightened away by our haste or aggression, but the fine detail of fern and flower, or devastation and disruption, becomes visible. Many of us hurry along because we do not want to see what is really going on in and around us. We are afraid to let our senses touch the body of suffering or the body of beauty.
Joan Halifax