February 19, 2010 Print Preview

Frozen Moments

We were shoveling snow - again. We had so much snow that some of the piles we were tossing snow onto were way over my head. As we shoveled, I thought of my garden buried under the many feet of snow. “Will I ever see it again,” I wondered.

I knew the answer of course. I knew that spring will come, my garden will bloom, and truth be told, by the end of fall I will be yearning again for the white inward quietness of winter.

In that moment of awareness, I stopped wanting it to be spring. Instead, I enjoyed the scrape of the shovel on the driveway, working with Del who I could see in the distance shoveling his way towards me, the beauty of the fallen snow, and the song of the birds in the tree who sing with joy no matter what the season.

In that moment of awareness, I saw things differently. I saw my garden, but this time it was a snow garden. Each flake that fell added to the abundance of the garden. Each flake was free, each flake was an individual idea, unique and special, but one with the rest of its brothers and sisters, dancing in a variety of ways, but always with the same intent.

The weather has given us even more than a snow garden. We have an ice palace on our back porch where we house one of our bird feeders during the winter. It’s stunning. The light glances off and through the huge icicles so that no matter what moment we look at it, it is always beautiful, always unique, and yet always part of the whole.

Snow and ice are wonderful symbols of uniqueness even as they remain one. They are also wonderful symbols of frozen moments of attention.

Each snowflake is a frozen pattern. Frozen moments of attention are also patterns, frozen in our thinking. Frozen moments of attention are those moments we remember as if they were happening right now, never letting them thaw and dissolve away.

The pattern of frozen moments impact our lives by freezing them within our stuck points of view, and frozen ideas of how it was or could be. Our dreams and hopes are often buried beneath frozen memories.

As beautiful as my snow garden and ice palace are, they must dissolve and evolve into their unfrozen state before they can refuel the earth with the water it needs to bloom within the upcoming seasons.

In the same way, the patterns of our frozen moments of attention must thaw, dissolve, and evolve in order to refuel our lives with the spirit and love we need to bloom our lives.

One way we stay frozen is the wanting to be somewhere different then where we find ourselves. In the snow, shoveling away, I wanted to be standing in spring and green. This kept me from fully enjoying the gift of the moment.

There are many times we want things to be different than they appear to be. We may want to be out of a job into something else, out of a relationship into another, out of one life into a different one, but all of this wanting robs us of the awareness of the beauty of each moment and freezes us into the moment of wanting.

Instead of wanting, we can pause, if just for a breath, and feel the beauty of what is already present. Yes, it can look cold and uninviting, but in a blink of an eye, a shift of a thought, it can be beautiful and comforting.

Shoveling snow, or cleaning up of any kind, can be either joyous or painful. It is not the event, it our idea of it that changes our experience.

The sun will eventually melt my snow garden, and bring out the summer garden. Love, like the sun, will eventually melt our frozen moments of attention, and bring out the beauty of our lives.

It will happen, it always happens, but if we have closed ourselves off to noticing then no matter how brightly the sun may shine, no matter how much love is in our lives, we will not experience it.

Be still in the moment, and instead of wanting it to be different, enjoy its gifts. It is always giving; in fact, we are always the gift itself, so why not embrace each moment with open hearts, thawed and flowing thoughts, and enjoy the beauty it brings.

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