Simple is Beautiful, Change is Uncomfortable

We have a stand of decorative grass that we view out our kitchen window at every meal. It's quite tall - 8 or 9 feet I'd guess. Through the fall and winter, you can see the sunrise behind its tall seedheads, and in the late winter, little birds come to eat the seeds, bending the stalks sideways with their weight. Now that spring is here, the time has come to trim it back to a shorn clump to encourage it to grow again this year.

I was outside with the trimmers, starting by clipping the curves of grass at the bottom. My little daughter runs across the yard to talk to me: "Mom! Don't cut that!!"

"Why?"

"That's my field!"

I'm with her on this. This grass is so grand, it draws the eye. It goes from green in summer to red then purple then orange in autumn, to yellow and pale straw in winter. And the way it waves in the wind, and looks when snow covered... I should take more pictures of it. But, it's spring, and grass needs to be cut to grow best, and someone who knows gardening better than I has told me that it needs to be done before the green shoots appear, so the time is now.

But there is sadness in letting go of something beautiful and comforting. I know that it will come back, even better, but I also know that it will be some time before the big seed stalks show again. I'm cutting it back in faith that that time will come again.

Today's Nature Lesson

Nature doesn't play favorites or allow things to stay pleasant or comfortable or static. Nature makes change, constant change. When the time is right for the change to happen, it happens, usually right under our noses. As parents we see it in our kids, but we still go through shock at times when change comes to us. When we push it away, it gets pent up, growing, growing against its bounds, until at last the tension is too much and we get the "cosmic two-by-four". I am working to create change and be open, but even still it is hard work. If I can let nature teach us how to look, how to watch, how to see those tiny, incremental adjustments that happen in me each day, maybe the newness that is trying to get out will open softly, like a flower, beautifully blossom.