What constitutes a new season in your life? Is it graduating from one thing to another or moving sideways or backwards or up or down or inside or out or or or and and and…? What kind of in-depth efforts have you made to engage new opportunities for learning, growth, change and rearrangement in your life? In reading these questions, what feelings are they evoking? How would you define the season in life you’re presently in and why? What roads less traveled are you longing to travel? What are you waiting for?

I just finished two children’s novels our eight year old grandson gave me to read. They were about a robot who became conscious, adapted to her environment, went from being a stranger in a strange land to becoming a beloved part of what she originally thought was a hostile environment. Every opportunity the robot encountered became a learning experience. She learned to adapt to her environment, not to take offense, to make friends by bringing kindness to service and to seek understanding in all events.

Initially I was  flattered by grandson Atom wanting to share these stories with me and also thought there would be nothing to learn and grow from in these elementary school novels.  Fortunately, because of his kindness and my desire to please him, the season of opportunity showed itself and I grew from the experience and learned a bit more about my prejudices, preconceived notions and how even ‘robots’ can grow and change. As I pondered the novel’s story line, I realized how it was about me and you.

It seems that everyday can be a new season of our life; that learning opportunities are ever present while we are not. We, like robots, move through our days in habitual patterns without much or any self reflection and inner awareness beyond our programmed personalities. We make judgements from habitual patterns of conditioned responses, get lost on the system’s conveyor belts and wonder why life seems so mechanical. Might it be time for us to stop, look and listen to something higher, deeper and broader than the incessant chatter of our modern day carnival barkers?

What I’m coming to understand, rather than over-stand, is that we can’t enter into a new season until we’re willing to leave the old one. These seasons are mind sets, habitual patterns of thought and actions that, for the most part, we are unconscious of. Waking up to these confining and soul deadening programs begins the process of starving the beast of mechanical behavior. This in turn reveals to us the presence and ongoing wisdom opportunities we would never experience. The robot becomes conscious. . . .

Making this transition takes time, effort and significant readjustment. The people, places and situations that are no longer a fit for you will slowly fall away. You’ll be standing in a new field of dreams wondering what happened because this new awareness will separate you from the mechanical herd. Your new learning, growth and change to a more conscious internal and natural life will begin to short circuit your mechanical conditioning. It will open you to new possibilities, potentialities, seasons and relations.

Think of it as living in Florida in the summer as if you were living in Colorado in the winter. It wouldn’t work unless there were significant internal and external adjustments. It’s not that it can’t be done but it requires a significant shift in awareness which takes place incrementally with conscious effort. New programs are created to enhance new integrating systems. Meaning and purpose change. Wisdom evolves from wonder. New intentions create inspiration and you become more fully alive.

If Joseph Campbell is correct that: “The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.” Then this shift is an appropriate step in the direction of this goal. The new season of opportunity is always here and now. There’s always something more expansive to learn, another insight to perceive and contemplate, another dream to be dreamed. And as my grandson so wonderfully taught me; even robots can grow, change and become one with Nature. . . .

• Allow yourself the gift of shifting your routine today to experience some quiet time in nature. If you take a walk, find a place to sit somewhere along the way and feel the environment you’re in. Empty all your judgements and simply be present where you are. Listen quietly to all that comes into you and flows out of you.
• Become aware of all your ‘over-standing’ and shift into a deeper, broader space of understanding. . . Notice your thoughts by watching them come and watching them go like sitting by a river with it’s ever present flow. At some point become aware of your breathing and let the thoughts go. Feel the spaciousness of Natural Presence.
• While journaling, take note of your mechanical thoughts, words, and actions. Also take note of your intentions, your levels of acceptance, your love and the space of serenity. Throughout the day consciously reflect on what you observe, take note of the seasons being reflected, how you perceive them, learn and grow!