Like the month of June, our lives can be filled with all kinds of movement that cause us to scratch our heads, wonder about life’s mysteries, test our patience and cause us to smile. The bushes we thought were dead one day begin to bloom like the ideas that went dormant and now appear. The naked trees, like our creativity blossom when they will, and cause us to wonder how any of this happens even when it does. Every flower blooms in its own time like each of us in our passages of birth, life, death and new life.

The many gyrations of Nature in the month of June remind us that we too come to maturity over time through a variety of seasons. Some days, when life seems dormant and ideas stop at the door, I wonder how I’ll ever move beyond the grey skies and gloomy days. Other times, when the sun is hot, the humidity so wet or the lack of it so dry, I wonder how I’ll make it through the night. Today the sun is shining. Yesterday it was windy, overcast and drab. Today I’m awake. Yesterday I was tired and lazy.

What is it about each month, each season that can cause us to reflect on our own lives and the lives of our nation and the world? What is it that prompts us to fall asleep and to wake up? Why do we go along without reflection when the sun is bright and only reflect when it’s night? How do we come to conclusions that cause confusion without seeing the delusion of our collusion? Collusion with what? With the outer reality that only sees the surface of things while the inner reality penetrates into the essence.

The other day, when in a funky mood, I ventured to walk by the river again. I walked far enough to find a perch to sit on by the river. Here I was able to see my many selves flowing along this passageway we call Life. I saw the muddy water that had come from far away yet was here. I took notice of driftwood flowing along like thoughts that had been discarded. I noticed the backwater that came from the rocky obstacles of our lives. I saw us all rushing along in our knowing and not knowing going nowhere fast.

In my work, I continue to encounter people who need help in taking the next step on their journey in life. They need a place to spend the night or a helping hand to pay the rent or food and diapers for their children or gas to get to their next stop. They need help like all of us in the immediacy of today. Like plants, we’re stuck where we are while needing  water and sunlight for growth. It all feels like the gyrations of June and a whole lot of other months where seasons change from moment to moment, day to day.

In early June, the world of leaf and blade, flowers and awakenings explode with need and want in every breath. Noticing as we do and not, every sunrise and sunset is as different as are we when awakening to the environments within and without. The wonder of Nature speaks even when we don’t listen. The gyrations create the dance of Life that animate and transfigure all that is. Do you see it, feel it? Are you able to dance with it; this Life that’s both transient and eternal, seen and unseen? Hmmm….

• Notice the explosion of Nature as you wander about this week. Notice how you have and haven’t noticed the changes that have taken place in your outer and inner environments. Notice the gyrations in June that create newness inside and out. . . .
• Awaken to the difference between giving to receive and receiving to give. . . .
• Give attention to the gyrations that take place everyday as you awaken to the variety of seasons that are present within you. What’s blossoming? What’s withering? What’s growing? What’s stagnant? What’s flowing?