Newsletter Articles written by Tera Thomas
Issue 28
Life in the Balance
by Tera Thomas
What a year this has been. One only has to look at the weather to realize that there is a lot of imbalance going on. While many parts of the country are being flooded with tumultuous storms and record rain fall, other parts of the country, including North Carolina, are in severe drought with record heat, water restrictions, and no rain.
We tend to think that conversations about the weather are superficial yet, weather sets the tone of our lives. Weather is the emotions of the planet, and our emotions make up our own personal weather patterns. Just as there are sunny days, cloudy days, storms, and rainbows in the world around us, there are the equivalent emotions within us.
I have to admit that the drought and the heat have gotten the better of me this summer and my own personal weather has been just as difficult as the heat wave outside. It might be different if I didn’t have llamas who live outside and are prone to heat stroke, and young goats whose bodies are not yet able to endure the 100+ temperatures. If not for them I might just sit in my air conditioned house and feel bad for the people who have to work outside, but I am one of those outside people now, spending hours a day in the heat wetting down the llamas’ bellies and legs to bring down their body temperatures, getting electrolytes into the goats, moving fans to better places to blow the hot air around with little cooling effect, praying for a break from this heat, crying because I feel so afraid that one of my friends is going to die and I am helpless to stop it. I am often feeling just as out of balance as the planet these days. I’ve been thinking a lot about balance and what it really is. I think it is one of those things that animals know instinctively while most humans have to learn about it.
When there was a drought here five years ago, people prayed for rain. When the rain came that December, it didn’t stop. We had the worst ice storm in history and power lines were down in every part of the state. We continued to have too much rain into the Spring months and then people were praying for it to stop. It seems we think that bringing about the opposite of what we don’t want will eventually bring us into balance. But I think that balance is something else, a neutrality, an ability to go with the flow, to move with the tides, to allow our own personal eco-systems, our own weather patterns to mesh with all life on this planet—like animals do.
There are places in my life where I have this balance, this neutrality. When I am doing consultations for people and their animal friends, or teaching classes, I am in a space of allowing everything to move through me. I used to feel the need to change or fix things for them, but animals helped me to let that go so that I could be of better service. So I know that there are times in each day where I am truly balanced, connected, and contributing to a flow of love on this planet. Yet there are also parts of the day when I am not.
Yesterday I spent the day going back and forth from my house to the barn, contemplating the writing of this article, the art of balance, and looking for the place of balance within myself to feel that deep connection and flow of all life moving through me. At 4pm when I went out to refill water buckets and wet the llamas down it was 103 degrees. The moment I stepped outside my door it felt like I had entered a furnace. Yet I was feeling calm, grateful that I had water to get the llamas wet to cool them down, grateful for my goat friends, grateful for this beautiful land.
I noticed how blue the sky was as the llamas came out one-by-one to feel the cool water on their bodies and I felt so happy. I knew in that moment that everything was going to be okay, that we would make it through this summer, that all things are in their right place, and I am a part of it. I suddenly realized that I had surrendered, that I was there, in the place of balance.
I didn’t feel the heat anymore as I walked back to the house. I was not inside more than five minutes when I heard rain on my roof. I looked out and there was blue sky all around but rain was pelting down on the house, the barn, and the fields. This was not a sprinkle, but a downpour. It rained for half an hour, bringing the temperature down to 84 degrees and dumping more rain than I have seen since early April. And the whole time, I could see blue sky all around.
When the rain stopped I went outside. The llamas, the goats, and I all moved out of the barn and into the pasture as if we were entering a wonderland. Everything smelled so fresh and sweet. It was a reflection of how I felt inside, connected, grateful, and in a space of love. It was a moment of complete fullness.
“If only I could always be in this space,” I said to Inka. “But it comes and goes, fleeting, only a moment.”
“Yes,” said Inka, “but a moment is all there is.”
He’s right, of course. Being in the moment is what animals do so well while a lot of us humans focus on the past or the future instead of here, instead of now. In the moment is where we can always find balance; where we can always find connection. It was so clear to me right then, that life is a string of precious moments, sparkling jewels, woven together to form a tapestry of incredible beauty. And all the moments, even the ones where I am not consciously aware of it, I am always here, connected and part of everything.
The heat is back, but my own personal weather is cool and clear. Today I am my animal self, in touch, connected. This moment is full, rich, and it is always, forever right here and right now.
