Lessons from a Daffodil

“Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.” ~ Voltaire


Yesterday was a dreary day. With temperatures in the forties and a steady, icy drizzle, one felt more motivated to buy warm chestnuts and candy canes that the Easter eggs and colorful bunnies displayed on the shelves of a nearby drugstore. A month away from Easter, winter is still ruling the land.

Yesterday morning, one of the posters on my blog mentioned seeing her daffodils already in bloom, to which I replied that mine were still hiding out. I was wrong. Upon closer inspection, I indeed saw that my own spring messengers had awakened from their wintry slumber and were poking their heads out in full expectation of spring to come.

Looking at the tender sprouts made me smile – even on a day like yesterday they knew it won’t be long before they can proudly grow and fulfill their potential for yet another season. Just like birds singing before sunrise to welcome the day ahead, the young daffodils follow their own inner guidance – without a conscious mind telling them otherwise, they have no reason to doubt the plan Universe has set in place for them; regardless of temporary hardship they know warmer weather is on the way

If a daffodil can do it, there is no reason why we shouldn’t. We claim to believe in a supreme source of all creation, yet we consistently doubt the plan set in place for us by the same intelligence. We pray for something, and immediately after we doubt our prayers will be answered. All along, we allow our fears to take over our faith – we are afraid of lack, of being harmed, of being robbed, of being abandoned to our fate, of being betrayed by someone – and at the same time we claim to believe. In what DO we believe, if I may ask? And why do we continue to worship if we don’t fully believe in this entity’s supreme power over all there is?

In reality, God does listen, and there is no limit to what He can accomplish on our behalf, if we don’t stand in the way. By doubting the outcome of our prayers we close the doors to blessings already on their way, and we broadcast the wrong vibes to the Universe.

The entire Universe operates following a law or resonance, thus allowing us to duplicate what we feel. Even if words have power because they allow us to paint a mental picture, words without feelings are just empty groups of letters; no matter how pretty they sound, they lack the fuel to propel our petition forward. Words must be backed by faith and feeling to make a difference. If we have absolute faith that something will happen because we have released the request to a higher source of energy, our feelings will be a reflection of positive expectation, and will, therefore, produce more situations that will trigger the same feelings again, over and over. Whoever said that when it rains it pours truly hit the nail on the head – if our response to a situation is infused with feeling, Universe will continue to match what we feel.

We have become arrogant enough in our own self-image that we assume a frail flower is much less important than we are, but indeed, how much we can learn from it!

A Walk in the Woods

“In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself in a dark wood where the straight way was lost. Ah! How hard a thing is it to tell what a wild, and rough, and stubborn wood this was, which in my thought renews the fear! So bitter is it that scarcely more is death: but to treat of the good that I there found, I will relate the other things that I discerned.” ~ Dante Alighieri

It’s quite amazing how time and age can make such a difference in the way one appreciates good literature. Just a few days ago, I thought of revisiting a classic masterpiece I had to read back in grade school – Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. I still remember how all the kids hated it, and how we all thought the teacher was crazy for being so passionate about it. Only now, twenty five years later, do I fully realize that the teacher’s enthusiasm was absolutely warranted. Like her, I too am falling head-over-heels in love with this thought-provoking tale of human drama and ascension.

And how can anyone escape being charmed, when so much is said in just the paragraph I quoted? Although the entire story is laden with powerful messages, raw truth bleeds through the first few sentences – facing our demons is a fearful feat, but the benefits of taking such a daring step far outweigh the temporary discomfort and anxiety one feels at the thought of unearthing buried subconscious triggers.

It’s mind boggling to think that different layers of consciousness exist within us at the same time, and although we are often only aware of whatever happens on the surface layer, a full spectrum of subconscious responses draws the blueprint of our conscious behaviors. But, even if the inner foreman directs the work, we rarely agree to consciously listen to what it has to say, and prefer to drown its voice with external noise.

Unfortunately, the foreman is not going to be held back forever; when the time comes to assess the life we’ve lived so far – and are not happy with the results we find – we have no choice but to finally pay attention. When Dante wrote the Inferno, he was approximately thirty-five years of age, a prime time for mid-life depression. When he finally realized that his emotional well-being depended on ascending and finding his true self through a deep self-examination, Dante knew his demons had to be faced before rising above the human drama toward inner peace.

Taking such a step requires a tremendous amount of courage and a determination of steel, as very few people are willing to stir the waters of the subconscious unless they are forced to do so. Most people think they are doing just fine and resist the uncovering of hidden factors that can potentially turn their well-planned lives upside down. Just to give an example, my goldfish tank appears clean, but that’s only because all the nasty stuff gets trapped in the gravel and remains low; at first look, the water is very clean, but if one takes the time to vacuum the gravel – and thus making the tank truly clean – the water appears murky for a short while, until the filter is able to trap the particles that were released when the tiny stones were disturbed. Yet, once the remaining particles have filtered through, the water is truly clean, not simply an illusion.

Someone told me long ago that one must cross the darkness to find the light. According to Dante, their thought is right on the money.

When the Wind Blows

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on.” ~ Robert Frost


When I was a young girl, I found it mind-boggling how older people never seemed to really worry about anything. As for any teenager worth her salt, a small stumble was enough to devastate my world.

One day, one of my mother’s friends came over to see us. She looked terrible – her face was etched with deep lines of worry, and her eyes lacked the spark I was accustomed to see in them. She strangely looked like an old lady, and only bore a slight resemblance to the vibrant woman I knew. I said hello and gave her a hug before she and my mother went to the kitchen and closed the door; she held me tight, as if she never wanted to let go, yet her embrace felt weak. I said nothing. As curious as I was to know what had happened, I found comfort in my ignorance, afraid that whatever had affected her so deeply could possibly crack the foundations of my own world.

After her friend left, my mother explained that her husband had passed away in a traffic accident, and she was left alone taking care of her two young sons; if that wasn’t enough, one of the children was dealing with a serious health issue and required extra care which prevented her from working full time. To my teenage mindset, such hardship was something that could only fit a movie script – how could anyone survive so much?

A few months passed, and I met my mother’s friend again. This time she looked much stronger, and although one could still detect sadness in her eyes, she promptly smiled when she saw me. The moment her first few words escaped her lips I was in awe – her voice had a newfound strength, and a sense of deep personal resolve. When I told her how sorry I was for her loss, and asked how she was coping with her son’s medical issues, she smiled genuinely and replied: “He is fine. Things have been hard, but if one can hang on to the rope while the wind is blowing, their feet will find stable ground to stand on again. Everything passes.”

I thought of her words on the way home – what exactly did she mean?

It took many years for the depth of her message to sink in. Over time, I’ve run into situations in which I had to “hang on to the rope,” when things and energies got so crazy and scattered that I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be. Yet, I survived; each and every time. So did other people I know who lived through trying events.

In the greater scheme of things, much of the hardship we go through on a daily basis is no more than a speck of dust in a ray of sunshine, but as we go through it, it feels like a boulder chasing us. It’s not until things have passed and we are able to assess them from a distance that we realize the sun never stopped rising and setting, and life continued on, unscathed and self-preserving. If I look back now at some of my less-than-happy moments in the past, I can see that no matter how devastating or filled with anxiety they were, they did finally settle, and things found a way to smooth themselves.

Today, I no longer worry much. After all, if something is meant to go wrong, I will have plenty of time to worry over a disastrous outcome IF and when it happens; no sense in wasting energy over it ahead of time.

Things happen, and sometimes their play is entirely out of our control; some are apparently beneficial, while others seem placed on our path to hinder our growth, but all of them will eventually pass. And sometimes we realize that we worried too much after all.