Getting Through A Drought

Every life is going to experience a barren patch from time to time.  Those places where our inspiration and ability to keep growing comes to a halt.  A drought can come unexpectedly, one day you're fresh and green, and a week later your life is full of burnt grass and deep cracks.  This spiritual path I walk aways has me looking for the meaning in everything, and what I know for sure is everything that comes our way comes bearing a gift in it's hands.  So, in having to endure over the last few weeks a heat wave that had many days of triple digit temperatures, and watching my normally lovely oasis of a back yard turn into a dried up patch of earth, I had to pose the question to myself...how does this apply to me?  How does this apply to life in general?  The first thoughts I had were: nothing is dependable, nothing stays the same, and you really can't control anything.  This drought we just went through sucked the very life out of everything.  I had carefully and lovingly tended my garden, and I was thrilled I had one again for the first time in three years.  I had abandoned the idea of having another garden when my life turned upside down over two years ago.  I decided to forego gardening for a while until I felt the inspiration return, and it did this Spring.  So, after having healed to the point of actually wanting a lovely thriving spot in my yard, what happens?  Hundred and five degree temperatures that went on for days.

Are you experiencing a personal drought right now?  A creative drought, perhaps?  Maybe your finances have dried up?  Maybe a relationship has gotten parched?  Maybe your energy or zeal for life has just left you?   These personal droughts are part of an ongoing process.  The flow that was once our life can become stopped up with all kinds of debris, or, if we stop tending our garden...our mental and emotional state of well-being...before you know it we start dying off, bit-by-bit.

And here's another question: how true are you to your own beloved self?  I mean, really?  In spite of my own better intentions, I've been guilty of being the kind of person that I thought others wanted to see.  You know, to fit in, to not ruffle anyone's feathers, to not be "offensive" to anyone's sensibilities.  Over the last two years since my divorce I have become my own woman in many diverse and exciting ways.  I threw off the shackles of a persona that had shrunk to the size of a Who living on a piece of microscopic fluff somewhere in a field of much bigger and prettier flowers.  I was barely audible. I was terrified of owning my life, and I was certainly not unique in any way.  But even today, more then two years later, I had allowed my life to succumb to the insidious practice of hiding my true self.  My own genuine thoughts became simply "my own".  My opinion became that of a non-opinion in order to not upset the status quo.  I told myself I didn't need to be heard.  Truth was, I couldn't stand the big loudmouthed opinions that were around me, everyone had an opinion on absolutely everything, and I thought by being quiet, by living the motto, "Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy", I would somehow show that I didn't need to be heard, that I was content just letting everything and everyone "be".  But I fell into a trap of not wanting to upset folks, especially someone close to me, and I started to become a lesser version of myself, I became that too quiet woman of my former life.  I caught myself very sharply recently when I realized this, and it took my breath away for a moment.  I let had myself down.  Not good.  Not good, at all.  I was experiencing a personal drought of epic proportions. 

So in the midst of the recent drought going on here in Kentucky, I could clearly see the parallel in my own life.  My personal sacred ground had been drying up and becoming seriously and deeply cracked.  You know when the flow of your life starts slowing down, you also usually know what the debris is that is causing things to become blocked.  It takes work to stay clear eyed and focused on becoming the best we can be.  There are days it just comes naturally because we have become accustomed to living at a higher frequency, a higher vibration, where everything just falls naturally into place and we move through our days with ease.  But then there are the times when we drop the ball, we get lazy and just let things get stagnant.  I had been guilty of that recently, but in taking a brave look at what had caused this, I changed the course of my life and the dried cracked ground beneath my feet began to receive the life giving water that my tears brought to it. Change always brings strong emotions with it, so cry the tears of pure release and then let them go.  The tears I shed recently were a blessing and they will continue to water the fertile new ground that is now emerging.  

What has dried up in your life?  What has stopped the flow of you standing in your glory and living joyously?  When the landscape of your own life will no longer support your growth, cut away the weeds (you know what they are), pull them out by the root (go to the source and confront it), rake up your ground (prepare the way), and then water it by making a renewed commitment to tend the ground you are walking on....because it's your life darling, and if you're not growing, you're dying.  Nature is my teacher, conflicts and painful encounters are my teachers, too. Both have shown me where I needed to let go, where I needed to cut away, and where I needed to clear the dam I had allowed to be built in the middle of my life.  Then, and only then, will everything begin to flow once more.  

The most symbolic thing that occurred for me in the last few days was the rain that finally fell.  A glorious, cooling, drenching rain.  I stood in it, hands wide open, my face turned upward, and I felt a renewed sense I was free to grow once more.  I was free of other's expectations, free of intolerance, free of false notions and indecisiveness, free of what was causing me to become barren and small and fearful....and the rain fell like a benediction.

I invite you to examine your own barren patches.  How did they become that way, was it an insidious process, bit-by-bit, (like I experienced), or was it the fact you let yourself down and played small, and became someone you didn't know anymore? Be gentle with yourself when the realizations come, and when you get to the source, dig it up and begin to water your ground again, and water it deeply.  Then watch the blessings begin to fall like rain!

Until next time...blessings upon your heart

Cindy