"To live with an evolutionary spirit, is to let go when the right time comes and to engage new structures of relationship."Erich Jantsch
I absolutely love a good quote as those that have followed my blogs know. I think I like them because sometimes they communicate life's deep truths in a single sentence. The quote I am starting this blog with does that for me. I was struck by the words "evolutionary spirit" as I had never heard those two words used together. So, what was it about the idea of living with an "evolutionary spirit" that I liked? I guess it is the idea of being alive to the cycle of life that always seems to have this universal pattern of birth, growth, death and renewal and to recognize this pattern at work in the world at every level.
Yet the other part of this quote means not only living with eyes and hearts to see this pattern at work in myself and in the world but also to engage with it as well by learning to "let go when the time comes". Now this is the part that gets tough to do when it gets personal. Learning to "lighten our grip" so that when the time comes we can let go.
In my life I am aware of times where I did not lighten my grip and hung on way too long before finally letting go. I also know that I have many more opportunities coming to challenge my ability to "live with this evolutionary spirit" and learn to let go. I will share though a couple of times when I did see the right time for the "necessary dying" and letting go.
The first one was my decision to retire 10 years ago after working for almost 40 years at Boeing. I was fortunate to have so many great mentors and managers in my career that fostered my growth and maturity. I loved learning and building new skills and knowledge and the last 15 years of my career in Product Development were the best years. I loved my job. Yet, I recognized that it was time to let go and retire so that I could "engage in new structures of relationships" as the Eric Jantsch quote goes. The time was right to let go and I did.
All of us have to learn to let go of something smaller so something bigger can happen. But that’s not a religion—it’s highly visible truth. It is the Way Reality Works. Richard Rohr
It turned out the decision to retire happened to coincide with the birth of our first grandchild and I got "promoted" to the best job of my life, to help out two days a week in the care giving of our grandchildren (three total now and one more on the way soon). Talk about "new structures of relationships".
It was so much fun learning to become a grandparent. Now, if I had chosen to remain at Boeing, working another 5 more years, I would have totally missed out on "something bigger", much bigger. I had evolved from my identity as a long time trusted and valued Boeing employee to my new identity as "Pops". I love being "Pops".
Now that other fun "evolutionary spirit" story I wanted to share with you was with my photography. The "birth of my love of photography" began in my early 20's when I got my first 35mm Single Lens Reflex (SLR) film camera. I took a photography class from a local photographer named Art Wolfe (yep, that famous Art Wolfe). I took those great lessons I learned from Art and applied them as I kept taking more and more images. I started with film cameras and was an earlier adopter of digital camera technology (my first digital camera was in 2002). I had lots of great lenses, cameras and tripods that were all very heavy but I was young and strong and it just was the price to get great images. In 2016, I sold all my heavier camera and lenses and switched to a new lighter mirror-less digital camera and lens made by fujifilm. This camera brought back some real fun for me again with the all the manual controls on the outside of the camera just like my first 35mm SLR I bought.
Yet, it turns out my "evolutionary spirit" was still on the move as I started to think about "letting go" off all my traditional camera gear. Could I make this final "evolutionary leap" and just use the latest high end iPhone 12 Pro Max? Well, I decided to lighten my grip and just try going really light. I purchased the iPhone 12 Pro Max (although I still carry a tripod) and it has been a pure delight to use. It has provided such a wonderful level of freedom I had not experienced before. I know that I let go of the very high end quality images that "real cameras and lens" provide but the trade off was truly "revolutionary" for me!
Our natural world seems to have this birth, growth, death and renewal thing figured out. The photograph top of this blog is of a larch tree. It is called a "deciduous conifer". Their range stretches from Oregon to British Columbia and east through Idaho into northwestern Montana. They grow high in the mountains and the larches grow new, yellow-green needles in spring that turn a show-stopping yellow-amber in the fall. Then the needles drop, leaving the tree branches bare in the wintertime.
The growing and then losing their needles each year is an evolutionary adaptation that works to the larch trees advantage. The temperatures that larches grow in tend to get too cold for winter photosynthesis, so larches save resources by not producing leaves in the fall and winter. Additionally, losing needles is an advantage because it makes the larches more resilient to defoliating insects and fires.
I thought these beautiful trees are a good example of how nature works, it changes and adapts through evolution.
So, this indeed is the challenge for us as a human species, to live with an evolutionary spirit letting go at the right times so that we can experience new structures of relationship and more freedom.
"the most authentic life can only be found in the freedom of letting go, over and over again." Sr Ilia Delio
May the "evolutionary spirit" be with you!
John
As I promised, I am including a Nature Meditation in each blog release (at least for now). Here is one of my favorites I use regularly. This one comes from hike to Gothic Basin last July. You can hear the sound of a large waterfall that was just around the bend in the trail but it is the singing of the thrushes that I love. I love the "call and response" of the thrushes singing back and forth with the waterfall sound in the distance!
Enjoy this ten minute nature meditation I created from this hike! This nature meditation like the one from my last post includes a introductory section to help get ready for the nature meditation. If this does not work for you can skip the first two minutes.
Gothic Basin - Waterfall and Thrushes Nature Meditation (10 minutes)
An evolution for me was to carry only one lens on our Europe trip - even that is heavy and I rejoice at the end of a day I did NOT schlep the D850 with me but just the iphone. Keep it up, John!