A student recently commented to me that she was having a hard time blending her spiritual tools and knowledge with her every day life. My Spirit Guides, being ever helpful and the comedians that they are, gave me this wonderful example to share.

Living in rural Texas, people who have native plants and grasses don't have to mow the lawn very often. We do, however usually have the proper tools for the job when it arises. I travel quite a bit and lately it seems to rain whenever I am away which means the yard needs mowing when I return.
With this Texas heat, you pretty much have to mow before 11am or late in the evening. So out I went one morning to fire up my lawn tractor and all I got was a sputter. It wouldn't start. Being the multitasker that I am, I headed back inside to do something else, all the while contemplating that tractor. Maybe it was knocked out of gear. I'll try that! I headed back to the shed. Not even a cough this time and on top of that, the right front tire was flat! By that time it was hot. I'd missed my window of opportunity for that morning. I tossed the portable air tank in the back of the car and put "air" first on my list of errands. I returned home with enough time to get a little mowing done before dark and as I unloaded the car, there sat the empty air tank. All righty then! No mowing tonight.

The next morning bright and early I checked to see if the tractor would start. I used all my secret mojo and all I got was for the headlight to turn on. No sense in driving back to the station to get air. If I had a truck I could borrow my mom's mower. I don't have a truck. Mowing the grass was getting more and more complicated and I was scheduled to leave town again with more rain on the way.
Upon considering my options I had a brilliant idea. Aha! I could use my push brush trimmer! That was better than nothing! So I suited up: jeans, boots, gloves, hat, and sunglasses, and gassed up the trimmer. Stickers and cling-ons here I come! I headed into the thickest area of silver nightshade and beggar's lice just as the last hint of morning coolness burned away.

I love mowing. Once I'm actually involved in the task, it's a great meditation time for me. So what the heck was that all about? There I was push mowing my dog's yard with a brush trimmer. Why did I have to do it the hard way rather than using the proper tool for the job? Was I being a victim? No, that wasn't really it. How many times are we forced out of our comfort zone and made to use our other tools to do the same job? OK that fits. To what length will we go to make things hard and how much resistance do we demonstrate in the form of drama? Hmmm…

Let's take it a step further. As I was mowing and thinking about the last question, a giant black bumblebee-looking creature dive-bombed me and I immediately let go to the trimmer and backed away. The minute I calmed my fear and regained my center it flew away. So when we are using a tool we aren't quite as familiar with and something big and dark and unexpected suddenly appears, how often do we run away and maybe even abandon the whole project? How long does it take to notice that we are off center before we re-ground, re-source and re-center?

By this time I'd gotten to the part of the yard where the wild sunflowers are growing. Some years the yard is full of sunflowers and gold finches that love their seeds. Wouldn't you know it? The sunflowers were growing in the middle of the thickest part of the beggar's lice whose seeds are like parasites and next to impossible to get out of dog fur, not to mention socks. So how often are our treasures and pleasures in life surrounded by sticky, prickly, parasitic relationships? And how do we handle that when we finally see what's happening? Do we walk away from it all together, pretend we didn't notice? Do we choose to tolerate the parasites so we can have the flowers and birds? Or do we mow it all down and sacrifice the flowers to get rid of the weeds? It just so happened that I had the perfect tool in my hands. As long as I was mindful I was able to trim out the weeds and leave the flowers. I lost a few flowers that were small and that's OK, more will grow in their place now that the weeds are cleared out, there's plenty of room for more flowers.

As I carefully trimmed out the weeds I realized I had made an odd path around the section that remained. I usually mow in neat lines, very tidy and consistent. I found myself tending to walk down paths I had already mowed in an attempt to make it more orderly. I was wasting time and it was getting hotter. How often do we follow the same comfortable path and repeat the same patterns rather than getting outside of the box and leaving behind our perfectionistic tendencies?
By that time it was really getting hot. I had quite a bit more yard left to do and a small piece left in the priority area where I was working. I really wanted to quit then and there. How willing are we to push through that last piece of resistance to complete the job or to increase our capacity? If we finish up that piece, is it appropriate and OK to stop there? Do we know when to quit?
When I looked back over the yard, it wasn't the prettiest job I'd ever done. What would my neighbors think? You know what? Spiritual growth and healing isn't always pretty. For all my neighbors know, I was just cutting the grass!