Maps Of Change

I have spent considerable time noticing clouds this year. I have wondered why this year, this summer, they have captured my attention more than any time previous. And then the poet, May Swenson, whose collection of words found their way into my hands recently, answered my question when she wrote of clouds. She referred to them as maps of change. Yes. Most certainly, they signal change for me. In that change, I sense death. In that death, I scan the skies and wait silently for new life.

Is it because I am mid-way into my 40's that the sudden death of old ways of thinking lie scattered on the ground like rain-soaked bones, or is it my accumulated inner strength has reached the perfect water mark to drown my tenacious ways that no longer serve? Regardless of age or perfect timing or the tipping point of inner strength, I can no longer invest my thoughts and devotion and precious energy into things and projects, and even some people, that no longer serve me. If I am honest with myself, so many of the projects, and yes, some of the people, never served me to begin with. Equal reciprocity was never forthcoming and my addictive impulse to give more and more and more in the direction of semi-hopeless causes has come close to being the death of me.

But today, I choose a different kind of death. I willingly choose a death that promises rebirth. I choose to scatter my energies no more. I call back to myself loving devotion that has been misplaced. I spread my open hands over my own heart. I wait inside this pause as thoughts and energies redirect themselves in ways I cannot begin to imagine. I have no answers for myself. I have only the sudden urge to let go.

Clouds continue to billow and drift, mapping my change, redirecting my ways and keeping my head aloft.