Patterns

We find magnificent patterns in nature…sand ripples, turtle shells, leaf structure, rock formations…an endless list. There are the patterns of global wind and ocean currents, weather, movement of stars through the vast, velvet sky as well as river’s pathways and crystalline formations. Amazing, magnificent patterns abound and give us structure, things on which we can depend.

With one of the last iPhone updates, my phone automatically gives me estimated time of travel to various locations based on patterns in my life. It’s a little freaky that my phone can guess my travel based on regular moments. 29 minutes to Fairhope it tells me when I start the car at 7am. Or 25 minutes to home from cycling or walking Buddy in the state park. When it doesn’t predict my destination correctly I taunt it. Ha, you are wrong! That’s not where I’m headed. It’s a bit strange to be so predictable that my phone can usually guess where I’m headed.

Sometimes patterns are wonderful…yoga, cycling, walking the dog, meditation, nourishing meals. All healthy. But what about those other less-than-healthy patterns?

On my way to yoga this morning I was enjoying the beautiful back-country roads and contemplating stuff….you know stuff. I saw how behaviors and choices in our lives become habits or patterns. Chemical grooves are literally worn into our brains like the grooves on vinyl albums. Inner patterns can be beautiful or can be self-destructive.

The vision came of standing in the eye of a cyclone and experiencing the calm at the very center of life. Fears swirl around inviting me to grab hold and collapse into that old way of being. The familiar, the practiced behaviors can entice us so temptingly but the moment we step out of the calm center and grasp the old fear pattern, we are jerked into a chaotic cyclone. This is one example but the possibilities are truly as endless as the patterns we find in nature.

The beginning of true personal power comes with the realization that we have choice. So often we simply choose the familiar reactions, practice the same behaviors and we stay stuck in our lives. The moment we pause and listen before leaping into old, reactive behaviors of action and speech is the moment we begin to see there is no prison except the one we create for ourselves. As surely as we build our inner jail cell, we have the key to exit it at any moment and create a life without in-prisoning behaviors and actions.

While this certainly applies on a personal level, it also applies on a community level or global level. What are the choices we make each day that keeps us stuck or frees us? Imagine a planet where we collectively pause and reflect upon our actions…our reactions. The potential for peace and love grows with every one of us that pauses before reacting, before practicing old behaviors and patterns of speech and being.

I celebrate beautiful patterns in life….those that enhance beauty and peace, love and compassion….those that keep us in the sacred, calm center.