Becoming An Apprentice

Good Monday morning!

I love that you can’t quite tell in this photo if this is morning or evening. I love that the mystery and the beauty of such a sky simply stops me for a moment, a moment in which I begin to wonder, where am I really in this grand revolution of time we call life? Sometimes, I really feel as if I am new born. Not the nice newness of novelty and excitement new born, but the messy, smelly, unpredictable business of living on this planet new born. After all this time, (62 1/4 years), I did expect to feel a bit more adept.

But, fact is, I am still an apprentice. I am an apprentice to this body, this life and even this planet herself. And the problem, well, of course, the problem is simply expecting otherwise. I’ve said many times that I acknowledge having been both a willing and unwilling disciple of this body, but now, what about this body we call earth, am I willing to apprentice myself to the earth? To the astral bodies, the sun, the moon? To the living energies that inhabit these many bodies; the wind, the rain, the fire?

Sometimes, I simply feel ill-equipped, in love and at a loss. I feel for the elements, the planets, the people. And I am not sure how to respond to that feeling. Is it good enough to “love”, good enough to see the beauty inherent in the world? What will be good enough as we navigate the changing climate and the social landscape?

The persistent focus of my apprenticeship with this body has been what I continue to call “health powered by choice.” This is the notion that an individual body and the health of that individual body is reflected directly by conscious choices that that individual can make. Nothing is a choice if consciousness is not there, if awareness is not available to bring consciousness to the moment.

But in the case of the earth, I have to ask, at what moment was the awareness there? When was it lost? How can I return to such an awareness? How can I be a good apprentice?

The most obvious of answers seems to be to follow the seasons, follow them as a good apprentice, watching how it is done; how the leaves come and go, how the air changes texture, how the path of the sun and the moon across the sky changes.

To follow the seasons could look something like this:

         *get up with the sun
         *stop eating after dark
         *feel the air each day on your skin
         *feel your feet on the ground each day
         *let the cold slow you down
         *let the heat speed you up
        * let thirst, hunger, fatigue be your guides to activity

I have this image of the sorcerer’s apprentice, busily running about making potions and notions, tidying up the workshop, but none of the “following the season” ideas seem to match that busy being. Yes, I could clean up the yard, tidy the plants, put away the outdoor furniture, but instead I want to apprentice myself to the very still sunlight, to the very cold air, to the quiet.

I will follow the light, make adjustments to my schedule and my activity to honor the changes both in my body and the world. No matter that I cannot discern whether the color in the sky portends light or darkness, I can discern my feet on the ground, the air on my skin, the fullness in my belly. Having no idea either how close or how far I am from birth or death, the beginning or the end of this life, I am accepting, at least for now, the plight of the apprentice, listening, tending, but never knowing when they will become the master.