June 8

HUMILITY MONTH: DAY 8: “It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.” ― Rachel Carson

The ocean is always my source of humility, along with the starry sky at night. I get such a great feeling of my own smallness in the vastness of both.

I am always, also in awe of the process of Nature in all its glory. As a beach person, I love the regulation of the tides and the correlation between the significant tides of the moon cycles, especially as we come to the Summer Solstice. It took me years to understand the impact and significance (and perfection!) of these patterns. It never ceases to amaze me.

Life is so big sometimes. And I have always had a sense of the enormity of some things…the Universe itself is a particularly awesome and fascinating thing to study. The movement of planets and galaxies and all of that. More than science fiction, science reality is something we humans have yet to comprehend even a portion of.

I have worked, in my life, with (literally) thousands and thousands of new members to recovery. Each of them balks at the idea of personal powerlessness and, of course, humility. These are tough concepts for egos the size that they are when we walk or crawl into this thing.

I always invite those who do not understand the principle of powerlessness to stand on the beach and get even one wave to stop rolling in. Or to stop the sun from setting or rising. Of course, we cannot. And that is what it is like to be powerless.

There are other examples, but these are my favorites, because they deal with the Ultimate Power…Nature. She is the perfect teacher for all things powerful.

I am an avid gardener, have been most of my life. My connection to humility is in the planting of seeds or even transplants. I am pretty good at nurturing them to full growth; but have no say in whether or not they will “take” to the soil when I put them in. My record is pretty good, but I do say a prayer and hold those seeds and those little transplants in my heart for the early part of their growth. Then there is the part where they flower and produce some kind of food or maybe just a beautiful flower.

I have no say in this. I recently replanted a garden bed and put in seeds of beets and kale and chard. That is what was in the bed and all had been harvested successfully.

So, this week, I got 6 tomato plants, an unknown melon of some kind, and the other plants I had put in there knowingly. Where did the others come from? Hard to say, I throw very few seeds into my soil growing pit, but a few made it into the garden bed. I love the surprises I get when I do this. There are also a large number of weeds coming up, but that is natural.

I love Nature in all her many faces. She can do whatever she needs to do. I am always powerless to stop that process. And that is my most humbling moment. I have lived through a couple of tornadoes, two awful hurricanes, numerous earthquakes, and torrential rain storms, along with severe heat waves in my life. I seldom complain about the weather, I hate hearing it, so work to not perpetuate those conversations. But I am, once again, humbled by my inability to do much about it.

So much of Nature takes my breath away. I love that I can continue to walk the world seeking wonder and allowing myself to feel and express it. I hope I never become jaded or blind to the thrill of a beautiful bird singing in my yard or a hawk soaring over my head. I want to always be mindful that I am, truly, small and insignificant in this world of wonders. Very small indeed.