Watching from my deck as a hawk circled overhead, I was in awe of the seeming effortlessness of his soaring. I was wanting more of that in my life but felt like I had lost my connection with that feeling. Life was feeling like a struggle.
As I kept watching in awe at the beauty and grace of his movements, I realized that in order to achieve that height and take advantage of the upper air currents, the hawk still had to put in some effort of flapping his wings to create lift and, having reached the altitude that would allow him to glide from current to current, still had to occasionally flap his wings to course correct and stay aloft. What appeared so effortless still required some effort.
What I remembered in that moment was that it isn’t about getting to a point where we no longer have to put in any effort but rather how we experience the efforts we’re making. To the hawk, flapping his wings to achieve the needed lift so that he can achieve that state of perpetual gliding is completely natural, requiring no thought, no inner debate. It is not hard work. It simply is.
I had lost a sense of ease and flow in my life not because I got off track and now needed to bushwhack my way back. I simply needed to shift my perspective of the track I was already on. Like all divine truth, simple if not always easy.
Image by Veronika Andrews Andrews from Pixabay