Isn’t it curious that we desire our lives to be a constant upward progression of positive and pleasant events? We want our lives to unfold in ever increasing abundance, accomplishments, and success. But if you are over twenty you have enough experience with this thing called life to know that’s not how it works. Life is more like an EKG of a healthy heartbeat, a repeating cycle of upward peaks followed by downward troughs. Perhaps our hearts understand the rhythm of life better than our minds do; that there is a wisdom to these downtimes when nothing appears to be happening, when all our goals and dreams seem to stagnate. Whether or not we choose to embrace these meantimes and in between times is another matter altogether.

I am currently participating in a seminar series held by, spiritual teacher and empathic healer, Matt Kahn. A couple of weeks ago he presented a new way of looking at life’s downtimes not as a negative but as a gift from the Divine and part of our normal and healthy cycle of existence.

He says:

“So many of us have intuition about what’s ahead in life’s plan and we want what’s up ahead in a chapter of our existence where it is not time to receive it. We want to be high vibration when life says ‘no it’s time to be slow vibration, slow down let’s learn from these lessons, let’s integrate  these insights’ so that when you get to that point of your journey you will be able to handle and receive it.”

And while I understand these deep truths my first and only reaction to the slowing down has been resistance. I ignore the pull of slowing down by working harder, doing more, sending out more query letters and resumes and writing more daily pages. When these efforts don’t pick up the pace of my life, the inevitable frustration, anger and depression would set in.

Instead of resting and reflecting and allowing silence to percolate the deeper more uncomfortable feeling to rise up and be released I would distract myself with books, bingeing on Netflix and constantly checking emails and my Facebook page. I would grasp for anything (even cleaning the grout in the bathroom) to avoid the inconvenient and uncomfortable feelings that persisted.

And then my life would move forward in its own time and in circumstances that I hadn’t anticipated or planned. You’d think as a garden, one so connected to the cycles of the seasons, I would have made the connection that in life so in our human experience.

As Matt explains it;

“Slow vibration by comparison is not as pleasurable as high vibration . . . but be that as it may, blossoming as a flower might be more outrageously pleasurable than a seed underground that has to explode in every direction in order for that flower to blossom but it is necessary for one to create space for the other.

I’ve recently moved to a new town. I’ve unpacked the last box and placed the final stick of furniture in its place and now . . . and now, I find myself in a slow vibration, again. It is early spring, the in between time of the seasons and like spring I too am in between jobs, in between book releases, figuring out the lay of the land in a strange town and getting used to the unfamiliar sounds and feelings of a new place.

I still have moments when I reach for the chocolate and watch yet another episode on Netflix but this time, more often than not, I walk towards the silence and just see what arises without judgement or fear. Last week, I put in the first veggie crop in my new place and as I sprinkled carrots seeds and pushed onions sets into the warm soil it reminded me that I too have been put into the seed phase again, a time to strengthen my foundation and put my energy into expanding in all directions deep below the surface so that when the time comes I can head into the light and bloom extravagantly.