Beloved ones!  I awoke this morning to this silly snow face smiling at me and I laughed like a kid.   I am so humbled by all this snow!  This morning a lovely insight came to me after reading an email from a friend who was hopping mad at the Mother Earth for not letting her do what she wanted to do because of snow. Something felt ‘off’ to me in her email, this anger at Mother Earth for all this snow.  I decided to contemplate my response while doing some dishes.  Here’s where I got to…

No matter what I want to do, this snow has other ideas for me.  No matter how much I want to go to the gym, the snow says “No, stay at home.”  No matter how much I want my clients to come and see me, the snow says, “No, they cannot.”  No matter how much I want to teach class tomorrow, the snow says, “No, there will be no gathering tomorrow.”  No matter how much I want to run around to here, there and everywhere doing this, that and the other thing, the snow says, “No, you will stay in your home and see how that feels.”  And you know what?  It feels pretty good!  I have been so very busy of late.  This intense amount of snow is forcing me to slow down and face the moment; to slow down, sit down and respond to life as Life is happening on Life’s terms.   I am humbled.   And I am grateful to be humbled.  Once again.

And as I say these words to you this morning, suddenly a ray of light bursts through the snow clouds and smiles upon me just like that snowy face on my neighbor’s car did first thing this morning.  I intend to accept all this snow and all that it is bringing to me.  I am a human being who suffers from a bad case of arrogance as I think most of us do.  We all think we know best, don’t we?  We think that we know what we should be doing.  We should be working hard, getting out there, doing our thing, making money, making a contribution, staying busy, doing, doing, doing.  It seems Mother Earth knows her children well.  She knows that we are so stubborn that it would take this amount of snow to slow us down and humble us into taking a rest!  Can you imagine how arrogant we all must be to need THIS amount of snow to slow down?

I feel like she is gazing upon us like a Mother gazes upon a fussy child who is desperately in need of rest but is refusing to calm down long enough to fall asleep.  And so, she has taken our toys away and is tucking us in with this sluffy white blanket and singing us windy lullabys.  I think my Mother Earth knows better than me what I need.  I think she is making sure that something happens that needs to happen.  And right now, just for today, it’s rest and contemplation and realization that I have been hitting it too hard, spinning too many plates, stubbornly plowing through life without enough rest.

I hear you, Mother Earth.  love you, Mamma.  You are so wise and so kind.  You give me this food to eat.  You give me this water for my tea.  You give me this home in which I stay warm and dry as You pile snow upon it.  I love you.  I get it.  I intend to rest today.  I intend to hear your message of staying home and tucking myself in and slowing down out of this incessant doing I have been involved with of late.

You are so beautiful, Mamma.  I love your gorgeous white coat.  It feels so pure and innocent.  It reminds me of all the good there is in this world.  You are so creative!  That Lightning you sent last night during the sleet storm was amazing!  I had never seen anything or felt anything like that.  You are endlessly fascinating to me.  Thank you, Mother Earth, Pachamamma, Madre Mia.  I will be a good child today and heed your counsel, to stay home, slow down and tuck myself in!

PS:  Mother Earth, thank you for sending all those teenagers to shovel my driveway!