Puzzles and Patterns

As we slowly slide up and down the temperature scale, wandering through another wintery season of inclement weather reminiscent of the 70’s when I lived here last.  I am struck by how much easier life is when you allow the inevitable flux of patterns and puzzles and allow Time herself a voice in your daily analog. Giving the passing of time a value in your calculations. 

I am a terrible one for answering other peoples questions before they ask them, finishing their sentences before they have their thoughts in order, rushing to and fro at a furious pace often without my mind even Turned On.  I want everything done right now and just so. Head down to combat the wind thinking only where is it coming from, who is in a draft. Which doors should I shut. Is that ice underfoot? Not: what has come with this wind? What followed the wind last time it was here? What will this ice mean to the soil this year. This would help me create the pattern and prepare.

If we lean on our metaphorical gate and watch carefully we will be able to work out our environment and where we fit into it. We can see the elastic sides in our lives that we can grow into or through and the rigid areas that will hurt our toes and shins if keep fight them.  We can see where we can sit and how much we can use without overloading.  We can see where some relationships make you doubt yourself –  and others, though wreathed in mist, are worth fighting for. We can see that there is no belonging, no quick fix, no eternal happiness, there is only Time and her attendants The Four Seasons. Dawn will come whether we stand on the grass and shout for it or not. The same with love of your person. And a piece of land to sit on. 

Thought, contemplation, allowing an idea to develop over time, are the most natural ways of coming to a decision. It allows for generations of gathering. An old fashioned thought: to build something that will stand the test of time as it revolves and nibbles and changes.

We have to believe in our gentle earth and trust our children (whether they are children of our own line or children of the forest of life). To attempt to control it all is arrogant and ill considered. In fact controlling your entire environment and the people in it is self destructive. It is the disease of kings. You can’t keep it all. Time won’t let you. Life can be diabolical one minute and plain sailing the next and when you go back and think about it there was nothing much that caused the change, merely time. Trust. Trust Time. Watch for her patterns.

Of course you can influence your life. Time is only a journey to the grave if you do not speak up and sing and learn and report and improve and build and grow. And for this we need to put our own beliefs into a coherent honest pattern. What is in your little book of beliefs. What are your beliefs?  What do you believe in? Where is your voice in your life. Wild Life, and portent and disasters and victories are all there if you look for them. Once you see the pattern you can gently nudge life with your elbow and avoid some direct hits.  Or simply put your head down and work your way through it.   But if you are not sure of your manifesto it is hard not to get glass rocks knocking on your eye often. Glancing off your head. And that gets frustrating. Where are the hail balls coming from? Why are they being hurled at Your head? Catch them. Time and watching will tell you. They mean something. 

I have always said; be careful not to sleep through your life. I have seen people wake up at 45 and go, what the hell just happened. Is this my life? Then they run about causing all kind of chaos trying to Find Themselves. When sitting still and watching the patterns in the rivers of time throughout their lives would have answered every single question. Resulting in a more definite nurturing change. A lasting one.

Time will sort it for you as long as you allow it to. If you are on a diet which we all do here and there and if we write it in a diary we realise that every winter we put on a few extra pounds to combat the cold and every year we think OH MY GOD MY ASS IS FAT! Then we eat cabbage for a long time and things go back to normal. Well not normal actually as that is a state of mind not one of us can call our own. There is no normal.  There is peace sometimes. This is part of the puzzle too. Where do we find peace. When do have one of those fleeting truly happy moments. 

Because they are only moments. But very addictive moments. To strive is sublime.  Failing is part of the pattern. Failing twice is Time’s Lesson. But only if you and I are wide awake will we see it. Puzzle out the Pattern.

Have you ever looked back over a day and thought thank God I took that turn, or opened that door, or listened to that person, or saw that flash in the trees. What would have happened if I had missed that. Those moments are the ones when we got it right and we let the pattern show. We had Time and Her Voice turned on in our brains. Now imagine if we had our minds so Turned On – all the time, that we saw those slow moving signs. Often.

Of course I do not mean to lie down and let life run over you. Life  and Time and their Bridesmaids respect determination and intelligent thoughtful purpose. But how often have you noticed that when you force something and bash everyone over the head to get it Right Now: ultimately, inexorably/ slowly, life will teach you a better way, and then Time will be there with you to pick up all the pieces you broke on your rampage to get what you want.  And Time will teach you to watch for the puzzles and patterns in our lives that teach us and direct us.  If we are awake to see it.

Good morning. Does any of that make any sense? I am really trying to puzzle this out.

Dawn is almost here. I must run.

I will come back with my coffee after the chores to read your comments and see what you think. Wish I could HEAR what you think. Wish we could sit down and TALK this Time.

Have a lovely day.

Love your friend on the Farmy,

celi