Sacred Life Sunday - week 3 - Life From Both Sides

It's a glorious day here in Lincoln with the sun shining and white clouds drifting along in the sky. In fact it has been a glorious week and I can't help but notice just how much more uplifted I feel when the sun shines and the blue sky seems to go on for miles above and around me. I was just talking to T this weekend about how it feels like I am waking up to Spring just like all the birds and animals. I know we don't hibernate physically but sometimes it feels like during the cold, dark winter months my soul goes into hibernation and only when the sun is warm enough does my heart open up to feel once more. I feel almost like I have been living on auto-pilot these past few months and now I am ready to wake up and live my life once more.

This cycle of sleeping and waking has happened throughout my life too and this is something I am very thankful for. I've seen and experienced life from both the good and the bad, the secure and the terrified places and there have been times when life has felt worth living and other times when covering my head with my duvet and quite literally hibernating for the unforeseeable future has been the thing I have most wanted to do. And yet I am thankful also for those times when the tears have racked my body because feeling anything is far more soothing than feeling nothing at all - that I have experienced too!

So life has been seen from both sides and the more I grow and experience the more I realise what a beautiful blessing this is. I know pure pleasure and happiness and am able to know that this is what I am feeling purely because I have experienced their opposites - I have qualifying emotions and experiences - I can say "today is the best day of my life!" only because I have experienced the worst.

And so today I am thankful for the experiences I have been given, the changing of the seasons and the clouds rolling by in the sky that have reminded me of how good I feel and how much the following song means to me.

Both Sides, Now (originally by Joni Mitchell - but my favourite version is by Lucinda Drayton).

Rows and floes of angel hair

And ice cream castles in the air

And feather canyons everywhere

I've looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun

They rain and snow on everyone

So many things I would have done

But clouds got in my way

I've looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down, and still somehow

It's cloud's illusions I recall

I really dont know clouds at all

Moons and junes and ferris wheels

The dizzy dancing way you feel

As every fairy tale comes real

I've looked at love that way

But now it's just another show

You leave 'em laughing when you go

And if you care, dont let them know

Dont give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now

From give and take, and still somehow

It's love's illusions I recall

I really dont know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud

To say I love you right out loud

Dreams and schemes and circus crowds

I've looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange

They shake their heads, they say I've changed

Well somethings lost, but somethings gained

In living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now

From win and lose and still somehow

It's life's illusions I recall

I really dont know life at all

I've looked at life from both sides now

From up and down, and still somehow

It's life's illusions I recall

I really dont know life at all