Incubation

Yet another excerpt from my daily Om:

"As any gardener knows, bulbs cannot bloom until they have endured a period of cold. Held in the dark earth during the frigid winter months, they undergo internal adjustments and changes invisible to our eyes. Like babies gestating in the lightless, watery wombs of their mothers, they are fully engaged in the process of preparing to be born. So many of the greatest mysteries of life begin this way, with a powerful urge for growth enclosed in a small, dark space.
We humans have a tendency to yearn for the light, for the coming of spring, and for the more visible phase of growth that all things express in coming to be. In our love for what we can see with our eyes we sometimes lose patience for, and interest in, the world of darkness that nurtures and protects the seeds, bulbs, and babies of the world for such an important part of their life cycles. It is a perilous and mysterious phase of growth, and one that we have little control over, and perhaps that is why we don’t celebrate it with quite the same passion as we do the lighter and brighter phases of life. Nevertheless, we ourselves endure similar periods of developing in the darkness throughout our lives."

And yet again I feel it helps me gain a greater understanding of myself. I am finding in many areas of my life this "slow growth" or incubation period. I'm settled in so many aspects (career, home, various relationships, etc) and it's not a place I've been before in a LONG time... if ever at all. Though restlessness kicks in, I found the above excerpt as an awesome insight. A "powerful urge for growth" in a stable place. There will no doubt again be changes and the excitement that follows... or the "visible phases of growth"... but until then I am finding a certain solace in solidarity. Learning how to acknowledge it as solidarity, anyways, and therefore learning to appreciate it.

I also really like the reference to "losing patience for or interest in" this quieter time of growth maybe due to the fact that we don't have control over it. (Control is a recurring theme for me lately apparently- lol). As always, with a slight change in perspective, I find that I can look at this type of growth in anticipation BECAUSE I don't, and can't, control it. It's not up to me to figure everything out for once! What freedom!

It seriously is a "let go" moment when I view at my life this way... an incubation period that I don't have control over, YET I know I am making major changes and being prepared for what does lie ahead in the "visible phase" of growth. It's almost a "cozy" perception.

Me, my life, in a seemingly "quiet", actually less volatile, state... growing yet not forced. Just being.