It's been a slow, cautious entry into spring this year.  Usually I'm not ready for it cause we never really get winter in Austin, and I love winter.  But this year, after TWO big snow storms, including a crazy polar vortex that left us below freezing for days with no power and no water, I guess I'm ready for spring. 

The problem is, it didn't come at first.  I saw a few signs of spring before the freeze, but those quickly died from the cold.  After the freeze, everything, and I mean everything seemed dead.  I resisted the urge to cut down and clear the ugly brown landscape because more experienced gardeners said to wait.  

​Because nature is so good at "doing it's thing." I know I should have more faith, and deep down I knew that the landscape would adapt somehow.  But after a year full of disappointments, I wasn't hopeful.  That's what spring is supposed to remind us of, hope, but I wasn't there yet.
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Watching the landscape slowly emerge over the next few weeks, I was constantly reminded of the importance of patience.  Nature works on a timeline, but it's a very LONG timeline that has spanned billions of years on this planet.  As I see more and more green around me now, and more green than brown, my hope is returning. 

​My son's spirit animal is a cicada.  He was at nature camp with me five summers ago, my first summer camp actually, and he had a moment with a cicada that stopped him in his tracks.  Me and 10 other children all stopped and silently watched him pick up the cicada and put it on a tree.  It was a short interaction, but it was magical.  When we got home, I looked up the meaning of the cicada spirit animal. It was perfect for him.  If you ever have an interaction like this, I highly recommend doing a quick search to find the organism's meaning.

We went on to learn about periodic cicadas, like the 17 year Brood X that is emerging this year.  They lay their eggs on a plant, and the larvae emerge and crawl down into the soil, where they stay for 17 years until they emerge.  They then crawl up the tree, molt out of their exoskeleton, spread their beautiful wings, and enjoy a few weeks of life above ground.  It's truly amazing when you think about it.  How do they know when to emerge?  Why do they spend almost their entire life underground?  
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To me, cicadas embody patience.  They guide us to dig through the layers and layers of gunk that life has piled on us, to help us uncover what is true.   ​The pandemic has had us all cooped up, like these cicadas, just waiting to live life again.  And just like these cicadas, our time "underground" has uncovered some truths that I hope we can appreciate and carry into this new kind of spring and summer season.   There is hope, but there is still a lot of ugly in the world to put up with, so be patient, and stay open and curious.

From that calmer place, I was now a witness to my thoughts, instead of trying to juggle them all and make sense of them. Like nature, we are in this life for the long haul, and I’m reminded that I don’t need all the answers now. I just need to do the next right thing (Anna, from Frozen II). Especially in emergency situations, survival depends on one step at a time.

During this nearly unbearable vortex of cold weather that shut everything down for days, I slowed down and started noticing what was showing up in my life. Niksen is great for showing us what’s important, and drawing us to create or bring more of it into our lives.

One thing that showed up that I followed was a phrase in my inbox: “If you want a reminder of what’s important, ask the squirrels!” This link lead me to an article that reminded me to just turn my brain off and listen. “(nature) will gladly remind you that your anxiety and outrage aren’t helping you stay present.” Again, nature returns me to a more neutral baseline.

This lead me to notice when I ran across squirrels several more times that week. From the ones under my bird feeder outside, to chapter books I read with my son, to a new movie on Disney+, squirrels all around me were reminding me what was important. So I did what I always do when I run across something repeatedly: I looked up its meaning.

As a spirit animal, squirrels teach us that this moment is temporary, and we should enjoy it and appreciate it. If we listen and watch, we can find it’s strength and its lesson that it has to teach.

Squirrels of course are also practical, and teach us to prepare for a rainy day and work hard for our future. This was fitting for this polar vortex that we were in, and I was glad we had prepared with enough food, water, batteries and camping gear.
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So my mind continues to be a bit scattered, and I feel like I’m holding too many acorns, but I’m slowly saving them and planting them, observing, and preparing for what life brings next. You never know which acorn we plant will actually turn into a tree and bring us the abundance we seek.​