Maturity

The fascinating thing is that maturity implies some sort of accomplishment, whilst the truth is that maturity happens to you without much of your doing, rather with your getting out of the way for maturing to happen or surrendering to it happening to you. I love the word maturity, there is a naturalness in the word that implies experience in time.

The most obvious representation of maturing is in nature. You can observe how trees, plants and flowers, for instance, carry their potentiality to terms in a dignified and patient way, utterly yielding to the rhythm of the seasons, committing themselves totally to the winds and weathers that unfurl or terminate their growth.

We humans seem so invested in gaining, achieving, perfecting or becoming more efficient.
We are compromising the present experience in turn for the end goal. We push and effort our way onward toward our aspiration. We have forgotten the language of trust and surrender that is still so inherently present in nature.

The time will come, despite ourselves, in which our being will ripen, all on it´s own accord, just by letting life happen to it. All we need to do really, is to stay open and receptive to it and foster the awareness and presence that help us keep our ears pressed closely to the heartbeat of consciousness and therefor to the wisdom of life that blooms us by default, without any exertion on our part. All that is required is staying attentive to the process and not getting in its way by trying to manipulate or hurry it along.

When this becomes understood, really, deeply, experientially understood we can let go. We can cease to effort and reestablish trust in life’s natural cycles, in the organic contractions and expansions of being. No need to force phases to pass, no need to speed up the process or hold on to any particular moments. Simply watching and allowing. Watching and allowing. Meanwhile, all by itself, maturing occurs.
Yes, with time. Yes, with experience. Yes, with suffering and joy and all the other dichotomies that come with life and death. Just like summer and winter are needed to allow buds to blossom, providing rest and progress in regular, pulsating intervals, paving the way for more growth and more abundance.

Perserverance is another trait we could let nature teach us about. Giving up resistance to the seasons and the changes that come with them, letting life unfold in its own time. We humans tend to cling on for dear life or try to bypass whole stretches, wanting to ignore or avoid floods and dry spells. But that´s not how life works, as we all very well know.

So why not embrace all the seasons, and all the phases. The limitation and tightness as our bud shell becomes taught and unbearably suffocating. The violent cracking of our husk as we grow out of its constraints, the awkward uncomfortability as we stretch and rise into a raw and fragile sapling, the trial and tribulation as we grow into our fullness and tenderly but courageously unfold our blossoms, making ourselves seen and therefor exposed to the world with all the vulnerability and glory that comes with flowering. And only when we have fully bloomed can our fragrance be distributed into the air for the benefit of all, can our fruits ripen to the point of being so ready to drop that only gravity is required to spontaneously release the full potential of our essence.

Maturity has happened. Just like that. With time and experience. With awareness, trust and surrender, but above all, with simply allowing, attentively as life runs it´s natural course.
Simple. Organic. Pure and astonishingly, beautifully ordinary.

with love,
Kanika

Co-Founder of DIMA – Centre for Conscious Living
www.dimamallorca.com