Jealous

Being frequently secluded in nature germinates deeper connections every time.  Nature shows me the way and always has a surprise for me: a special photograph, a chance encounter with a stranger, a peaceful healing moment.  As I explore deeper forests, deeper emotional layers filet back and do not get reapplied.  Once healed from something, why would I put that injury back into existence?  I’m learning to walk almost simultaneously with nature’s guidance through the season. 

If I look and listen, I see and hear.  God, the Universe, Mother Nature… whatever the influence’s moniker is, is in my life is these days.  They send salve among the wind’s whispers, but I’m in such solitude it roars.

I saw a professional photographer on Reddit the other day, posting amazing photographs with the caption “After six months of living in Alaska”.  My immediate reaction was “How lucky”, then quickly turned around and remembered I’ve been living in Idaho for four months, doing what he is.

Why was my first flinch to be jealous without examining my own life?  I’ve done it for so long, I now see, that it had become involuntary.  I explored my feelings of jealousy and realized I would feel more ‘arrived’ if I was making money at this.  Interesting that my programmed definition of success was still monetarily based.

I quickly grabbed my ‘comparison’ extinguisher and pointed it at the root of the fire.  My worth ‘compared’ to his.  I don’t even know his name.  Is he married?  Has he suffered?  His success should not be minimized by my comparative wanting.  Instead, may I improve the community with an intentional “Good for you, man.  What’s your most memorable moment?”

My internal conversation continued.  I have faith that I will eventually make money, but not yet.  I no longer had no anxiety for not generating an income yet.  I had hope.  Hope that it will happen one day.  At that moment, I rose over a hill, the clouds parted behind me, illuminating a slender valley full of every color, backdropped by several zig-zagging hills, creating a gorgeously peaceful landscape in the middle of a building storm.

This is the nature of my conversations.  My internal dialogue wasn’t heard, rather, felt, and was answered “Yes!” with a big, wide beam of sunlight.  The exclamation mark was a demonstrative, tangible rainbow of trees.

It’s becoming so commonplace for me to be guided by these urgings, that I’ve found a little rhythm to my day.  Mornings consist of housekeeping.  Midday I look on maps and decide where to go.  The dogs put themselves in the kennel while I put on shoes, and I’m out the door.

“I have a destination.

That’s rarely where I end up. 

I’m thankful for that.”