The wisdom of waterfalls

Sitting on this porch, in Tennessee, overlooking the green pastures, letting the wind gently cool me, I am set free. I see the way life can be. I have lived so much of life trying to run up a hill. Creating resistance is what helped me know I was alive. But now I see how life can come to me rather than me needing to go chase it. There is a season for everything and this is a season of patience. A season of letting the world come to me.

As the forest wakes up, the turtles emerge from hibernation, the trees sprout new life, I also am reborn. I am wobbly in this new being. I do not yet know how to run up hill so I cannot continue the same pace of life as I previously did. I have no choice but to toddle around the flat pastures, building strength for what hills and mountains will appear in my life someday.

The recognition of this cycle is a sweet gift. What would have previously felt like boredom, like I was broken and failing, feels like rest, true rest. We live in a world that teaches us boredom means we are doing something wrong. If we are not achieving and producing and creating, we are less than. That our only value lies in what we provide to the world. How can that be true? If everyone produced and there was no one to receive, the scales would be out of balance.

I am in a season of receiving. A season of attempting to push the scales back to balance. Everyone around me is giving in ways that in moments feels so harmful to their being. But if they give, someone must catch what they are throwing. I am here to catch as much as possible so I can collect it all and give it in return. So i can develop a cycle of reciprocity.

A flow that moves in one direction will eventually run dry. But one with a complete cycle, is continuous. Endlessly recycling through, to nourish everything it touches. This is the true balance of our world. Not a giving endlessly. A waterfall without a source will eventually run dry.

We can learn a lot from waterfalls. They do not require consistency year round of their production. Many times, a waterfall is dependent on the abundance of its source. When the rains are heavy in spring, the waterfalls roar. As summer approaches, rains become less frequent and heat rises, the flow becomes restricted. The waterfall does not feel less majestic even when it is slowed to a trickle. You can still witness the strength in its flow. Sometimes, when the flow is at its lowest, that is when you can see its true power. When the water is no longer obscuring the cliff it is cascading over, it is easy to see what the water has done. The grooves it has worn through solid stone. The carving of substance that appears so permanent. To be able to truly see the strength of water, this fluid substance that can be so gentle, yet cuts through stone, it feels miraculous.

What an incredible reminder of the need for consistency. And not consistently showing up exactly the same, but showing up with your current capacity. Some days you will feel abundantly resourced and know you can move mountains. Other days will feel as if all your upstream sources have run dry. These moments of scarcity, the ones that allow you to see the work you have really done, are valuable and so important to bring awareness to.

When you feel weak, that is the exact time to pause in reverence of what you have accomplished. When the water is low, the cascade of your waterfall feels so minuscule, that is when the water is clearest, the foundation you have created is most visible. Remember to pause here and witness. Witness the work you have done. The work that may require a cycle of rest from. To cut stone is not an overnight job. To transform the earth beneath you is not a passive act.

These waterfalls hold so much wisdom, especially in teaching us what action looks like. I have always assumed action requires speed, strength and effort. To act is to be driving forward, full speed ahead. But perhaps this is only half of the equation. I am learning that there are times in our lives where the greatest action we must take is to pause. To find action without speed is incredibly challenging. When our sources are depleted, when our reservoirs run low, the action required is to slow. This is far from inaction.

Inaction is a fear of action. Inaction is feeling frozen in one spot and unable or unsure of how to progress. There may be seasons of complete freezing of a waterfall, but usually underneath, there is always a tiny bit of flow continuing. What appears as a season of inaction is simply the perception of the viewer. There is nothing about the idea of action that requires a certain speed for it to be valid.

Fast action is no better than slow. The secret is to remember that there is a season for everything. To cultivate awareness to witness and sit in the gifts of every season, not just the seasons of abundant action.

Easier said than done in a world that pushes us to remain at one speed for our entire lives and questions our sanity if we ask for a different pace. When we begin to cultivate an ability to hold space for every pace of action in our lives, understand that every flow of the waterfall is beautiful, we can begin to find a new way to live. Even when our world asks us to stay consistent that does not mean we have to listen.