new eyes

Have you ever had that moment when you turn and look and the whole scene appears new?  It's the same one you've seen a million times, yet something is different?

It's been a difficult week at work.  There has been much cause for reflection, for quiet moments, for introspection.  Sometimes, that's how it is when you believe your work has meaning.

On my drive in this morning - the same drive I've been making for nearly 6 years - I was deep in thought.  The same thoughts I fought throughout my morning meditation.  Hmmmmph!  

I was pining over a problem I've faced year after year and listening to Rachmaninoff's Vespers, a work I often turn to in tough emotional times. Vespers is a collection of a cappella pieces with voices layered in rich chords, some comforting, some conflicting.  It has the power to pull me away from the conscious world and into a space that is purely spiritual.  It has the power to give voice to every complex thought and emotion swimming in my very being.

At the climax of a powerful piece, I literally and figuratively turned the corner and saw the scene before me with new eyes.  Of course, there was a dramatic change in the physical landscape.  A view that has been gray and brown and lifeless for weeks was suddenly drowning under water.  The magnificence of nature stopped me in my tracks and I pulled over to wonder at the sight.  I sat frozen, seemingly a bit in shock.  I've never seen this stretch quite like this before.  It was strangely beautiful.

 

I wondered whether the family that farms this land welcomed this changing landscape, though I doubted it.  I worried about the animals whose grazing fields were no longer available.  I thought of spring and summer and how this landscape will change again with time.

The fabric of my being wants to make meaning of this moment, wants to connect this fresh vision with other events in my life.  In time, I supposed that may be possible.  But, for now, I want to honor Nature and they way in which She can change the way I see the world.