The Softness of Snow

It's the new year. I feel like it has just drifted in, like the snow that fell so softly today. This is an election year. Without getting all up into the political storm, the ugliness of it can really be a bummer. The fact that fear is used as a tool to influence voting is--just low. I look forward to the day when we can stop talking at each other and instead work with each other. I look forward to people not needing absolute beliefs to cling to for a sense of security. I look forward to people softening, instead of getting all rigid. 

Softness is not weak. Softness is strength. It is the ability to absorb impacts and injuries and to bounce back. It is the ability to be bravely vulnerable. It is honest. It is resilient. 

How do I know this? 

People who are able to relax their bodies in a car crash or during a fall are less likely to be severely or fatally injured. When you catch a ball coming at you hard, if you soften your hands and arms, and allow them to go with the momentum of the ball at contact, it's more likely you will hang onto the ball.

Growing up in Nebraska, where the incessant winds and wild weather make it hard for most trees to survive, I saw that flexibility was a life saver. The cottonwood trees swayed from side-to-side, or around in a circle, during the gusts. They rarely broke. They lived a long time. They could handle whatever mother nature dished out. They were able to "give way" to forces. That ability to give made them strong.

Rigidity is born out of fear. When I catch myself being rigid, judgmental, or deaf to another person's perspective, I am usually operating out of fear--fear of change, of being "wrong", of the unknown. 

Buddhists talk about softening to the experiences of life.

"We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder. We always have the choice."  The Dalai Lama

I walked in today's softly falling snow, with it's blurred distances, and was reminded that this is what brings peace and contentment. This is what I aim for. This is what we humans need so much more of--softness. This, is what I choose.