The vernal equinox greencolander

Balance … that point of perfect stillness …the place of pause between the inhalation and the exhalation … the being in (yep, it would flicker) peace …

We seek balance. We crave and hope and workshop and self-help and click on links for it … We want balance yet all too often forget it is only a passing blip on life’s experiential radar screen. Rather than suspended animation, balance is a state of never ending mini-bobbles, of constant readjusting, of rolling with the punches, of going with the flow.

How paradoxical that balance is unsteady. It calls on every sense to be alert for small corrections, on perceptions to be both relaxed and sharpened.

Yet it is not a paradox. Not really. Complete stillness isn’t balance–it is frozen. It immobilizes. Holds down, prevents change.

Life flows, and we’re at our best when we are most aware and without anxiousness. We are most balanced when we’re in the moment, in the wobble, readjusting; undeterred.

Nature is as always, a most persistent teacher. It demonstrates balance twice a year. Points of pause from which to slow or quicken; momentary balance to remind us of how all stillness shifts; how balance IS the shifting.

Nature pauses in perfect timing … For as we move from winter sluggishness to the rapid march of spring; balance can seem suddenly untenable: how does one possibly do all there is to do, attend to all that’s going on–with ourselves, our families, our job, our countries, our world ….? How does one catch up with the riotous and springy energies?

The very point of stillness into seasons’ change, reminds us that like everything, we are also called to flow … adjust, keep boundaries, recalibrate yet not stop; swim the current but not be carried over and bashed by white waters; harness new potential and use it for growth, rather than destruction. We are reminded to let go not into helplessness but to a gentle bobble-wobble.

Nature also reminds us that we need to breathe. To play. To laugh. To live in the moment. To watch children and babies–so much new life opens in rebirth–and learn from their unrelenting exuberance even as we also learn from the unwavering subtle protection of good mothers who allow young minds to be both curious and safe.

It is in the small beats of life–the pause between the whoosh-whoosh of your heart, the stillness in the pendulum before it resumes movement, the perfect balance of the light and darkness–that all potential lives.

May you spring in balance. May balance bring more spring into your step.