A Meditation to Embrace Change
The cherry blossoms can be our teachers
Dear Friend,
It’s the week when cherry blossoms arrive here in Philadelphia and though our city isn’t iconic like the mall in the nation’s capital, you can still experience these magnificent trees if you know where to find them.
Last Sunday, my son and I drove down Kelly Drive and made a game of spotting the trees in bloom. We parked at the art museum and walked up to a pagoda overlooking the hill there to see more.
In a week or two, the cherry blossoms will peak here, then quickly whither. In Japanese culture, these flowers represent the fleeting nature of life. People gather beneath the blossoms and celebrate their beauty.
Here are two truths the cherry blossoms remind me of:
That life is impermanent;
That we have this moment–the present–with all of its possibilities.
It’s a complex to truth to hold. I am at the age and have had experiences facing my own mortality and losses that help me to recognize nature’s ongoing cycle of birth, death, renewal. To understand myself as part of that cycle, not separate from it (as many humans in Western culture tend to think).
What happens in our inner landscape–our soul and our imagination–when we hold those truths?
Through the month of March, our theme has been transition–and today we’ll imagine what the cycle of nature’s transformation can open up inside of us, with a guided meditation and connected prompt. (Find the meditation at the arrow above).
Writing Practice: Set aside 5-7 minutes for this practice. Write in a journal or open a ‘Journey with The Season’ document where you can return each Sunday.
Prompt: You’ll find the guided meditation for transition at the arrow above. Take a listen. What images came up during this meditation? What did you see and feel in the place where you were led? What was it like to leave it? To experience the sunset and the blossoms falling?
If you struggled with the meditation, write about a transition that you’ve gone through recently, when something changed in your life and what that evoked for you.
I would love to read about your experiences. Feel free to comment below or use the messaging app.
Deepening Practice: Take time during the week to notice changes in your outer landscape–whether it’s a shift in the daylight, new flowers or blossoms emerging, seeing animals who’d been hibernating through the winter. Write about how this shift in your landscape makes you feel, what it inspires.
Whatever your landscape, may the wind always be at your back–or not blow your hair too, too much! With love, Gabrielle Ariella
Hey friends! I’m so excited to teach this upcoming series for Ritualwell.
Writing a spiritual autobiography helps you to discover how teachers, touchstones, symbols and stories have led you to make meaning and understand the sacred in your personal story. Map out and narrate your most meaningful life experiences.
This series is open to everyone, of all faith traditions! I will share texts by Jewish writers as touch points but whether you have a particular faith tradition or not, this experience will be inclusive for you.