Grandmother Nature Rules (and a few of my own)

In the aftermath of the weekend’s ice storm, it occurs to me that life has few lessons to be learned that can’t be taught by Grandmother Nature.

1. Humility – Grandmother can very quickly knock out any idea you may have had of your own importance or abilities. She teaches that she is in charge and nothing in your day to day life will stand in her way. Sometimes we forget that, lulled as we are by seemingly endless beautiful days and busy lives. Then Grandmother reminds us.

2. Beauty—This hardly needs much more description. Everything I know about beauty I learned from Grandmother Nature.

3. Respect—This goes along with #1.

4. Enjoy life while you can—Tomorrow may bring an ice storm. Or worse.

5. Find ways to enjoy more of your life—See rule #4. There will always be work, errands, chores and nasty times. The trick is to teach yourself to enjoy more about these things, so you can spend more time being in the "zone" of #4.

6. Change happens, learn to deal with it—No tree is forever, no animal is forever. We are not forever. Even the forest isn’t forever. Holding on to what used to be isn’t something that Grandmother Nature worries about. New trees take hold, mountains rise, mountains fall.

7. Don’t focus on what you’ve lost when things change—This one is really hard, especially at first. We all tend to focus on what is lost when things around us change. It might be a job or a loved one or our youth. But with every loss comes something new, eventually. Spring flowers don’t lament the winter. New lives know only today and the hope of tomorrow. To them, life always begins with them. For those of us who are older, life should begin with today.

8. Life and Grandmother Nature always moves on—We have to learn, or at least try, to do the same.

9. To everything there is a season—Happy solstice. The wheel of the year turns again, and Saturday will bring more light.

Re: "Grandmother" Nature—Mothers I can deal with, but the cumulative weight of the ancestors is a force of a different Nature. So from now on, in my mind, Mother Nature has become Grandmother Nature, to help me remember that she's no pushover and to remind me of the lessons she teaches every day.