Happy Easter, Shanti-towners!
It's amazing to me that not until my 30th year did I get around to having a conversation with someone about why the Easter Bunny lays eggs. Why did I never notice that? Bunnies don't lay eggs, people. Chickens lay eggs! I would like to officially begin, here and now, the campaign to elect a chicken to the role of Easter harbinger. We've had enough of you, you weird egg-laying rabbit. All hail the coming of the Easter Chicken!!
My apologies if you were a student in one of my classes this week, because you're about to witness me ripping myself off to write this blog post. That's right, I'm stealing from myself. (Cut to me, buffing my fingernails on my lapels.)
I am not going to pretend that I KNOW much about Easter...I was raised without religion (gasp!) and so my Easter knowledge stops at the following: Jesus died. He rose again. Ta-da!! Happy Easter!
But as I was thinking about it this week (trying to pull some fun class themes out of it)...thinking about transformation and about rebirth, I kept coming back to the symbol of the lotus flower. You've seen this, yes? You can find depictions of the lotus flower splattered all over religious iconography from the east...the Buddhists definitely lay more claim to it symbolically than the yogis, but you can find many a Hindu deity balanced on, and many a yogi's backsides emblazoned with, the lovely lotus. It is, in my mind, one of the best symbols for transformation, and here's why:
The lotus, this gorgeous, pristine, floats-on-water flower is famous, not just for its beauty, but because of its roots. Literally...its roots. The lotus flower spends its gestation period in the mud and muck at the bottom of ponds. Until, when it's ready to bloom, it grows up from the dank and mud, through the pond's depth, and finally opens, brilliantly, on the surface of the water. Contained in the bloom of this little guy is not, then, just clarity and purity and perfect petals, but also muck and gunk and the remnant of it's long passage through the water.
What better symbol for transformation than something that began in darkness, that struggled from the grips of darkness, and then had to hold it's breath, just keeping faith that the surface was somewhere above it, probably unaware all the while that its destiny was to become this floating beauty.
Sound familiar?
I don't know, maybe you're reading this and you're already in your float-y lotus stage...maybe you've left the muck far behind you and if so, could you please call me? I have some questions I'd like to ask you.
But maybe you don't feel that way. Maybe you feel like you're just bouncing back and forth between the mud and the upward struggle through the water, and never breaking the surface, and if so, then maybe the lotus could teach you (me) a thing or two:
Like that transformation can not come without something to be transformed from. Like that a lotus flower without its roots in the mud would just float away, or get pulled under and drowned, or plucked up by some wayfaring bird. But that a lotus who decided that the mud was good enough, or all that there would ever be...isn't a lotus. And that change requires direction, it requires consistent motion and faith that there is a surface to break through. No lotus is going to carve a zig-zap course through the water--zooming up half-way and then deciding the journey is futile and turning back. It's up, up, up, with that sweet friend faith...just waiting for the water to part around your rising petals.
So, even though the Easter Chicken has come and gone by now, there is still time to channel your inner lotus. To notice, at least, whether you're in the mud, or swimming towards the surface...or (lucky devil) already bobbing on the glassy water, and to take your next steps accordingly. I believe, with all my heart, that there is clear water above you, and a surface above that, just waiting for you to break through it.
Ta da!! Happy Easter!
