Stillness 9-2: Many years ago, when I was a child and living far away, I found an open letter lying on our dining room table. Since I was an avid reader, it was my tendency to read most things that came my way–open letters on a table were no exception. This letter was from a friend of my father’s who lived in the United States, and it must have been written during an upheavalish era of which I was unaware. There was a paragraph near the end that is seared into my memory:
“The geese are passing overhead as I write this. Things come and go, and so much change, but every year, spring and fall, the geese continue to wend their way north and then south, and then north again. The constancy of their migration reminds me that change is their stability and so can be mine as well.”
There were no migrating geese where we lived, and so the very grown-up words held a fairy-tale-like magic to them. Later, over dinner, my parents may have answered my questions about geese and migratory habits, as well as instructing me in the existential nature of growth and change, but I don’t remember any of that. I just remember that paragraph—I see it like a photograph in my mind’s eye.
Rereading old letters I myself wrote when I was young gives me a similar sharp reminder of the dramatic changing and yet unchanging universe in which we exist. I am not the twelve-year-old I used to be—and yet here I am, still the same me. It’s very strange and mysterious.
Here’s a practice for you: Write a letter to your future self. Fill it with words of affection and understanding. Remind yourself of your courage, resilience, and strength. Give yourself the love and appreciation from the part of you that matters most: your constant heart.