April 2 2018

Our theme for April is Healing? Engage with Nature. Losses come in all shapes and sizes as does the healing that follows from them. One result of a loss is often a future you hadn’t expected. A few years ago, I was grieving the loss of an opportunity and a future I was anticipating. As often happens when I am in need of healing, I felt the woods calling so I went for a hike. About 30 minutes into my hike, a caterpillar climbing a tree caught my attention. I stood for a while gazing at its slow and steady pace. Then I noticed a big knot blocking the caterpillar’s path and wondered what would happen next.  This soon-to-be-butterfly simply stopped, turned to the right, crawled around the knot and continued upward. As I walked on, I realized that I too had reached a “knot” in my life and could choose to stop, grieve as I needed and then turn a different direction – other paths were still available for me to move forward. With cellphone technology at my fingertips, I turned around to take a picture of the caterpillar, and it was nowhere to be found. Although disappointed I didn’t get a photographic reminder of my furry muse, I had already received the encouragement and healing within. On that hike, I found something in nature that mirrored my life and it helped me heal. 

(First printed in the Centre Daily Times on March 21, 2018)