Mystery unfolding

COFFEE WITH WARREN, with Warren Harbeck
Cochrane Eagle, June 6, 2024

Thank you, readers, for your affirming responses to last week’s column on apple blossom time. I’d like to share one response, in particular, from our longtime coffee companion Tami Leigh.

The corporate team-building consultant saw a spiritual lesson in the nature and timing of the apple tree’s springtime journey from tiny pink buds to glorious white blossoms and beyond:

“We do not know nature’s time – all in perfect balance,” Tami said. “Just like the sunrise occurring daily, the blossoms arrive for the spring event. Life is kind of like that, a series of events converging to create yet its own event. How much we do not understand in the world of the spirit. And how much we try to control the outcomes, only to get in the way of perfection. Life can be left as a mystery unfolding. If only we can respect its time and space.”

I asked Tami to expand on that for our readers.

“We humans are actually just a part of nature. Our lives are similar to the apple blossom, living out life without question, opening into its beauty and purpose. The Spirit of the Universe created a perfectly balanced system. When we trust the power and presence of the Spirit, we can faithfully lean in, knowing we are being guided, built, and used through love and compassion. We don’t have to fight anyone or anything.

“Yet,” Tami added, “we often spend much time trying to control outcomes by controlling people, places, things and situations. We miss, or doubt, the balance. When things are going the way we expect, we’re okay. When they aren’t, then we believe it’s ‘wrong’. What if it’s still ‘right’ – that we are within the unfolding of the mystery of life? What if this uncomfortable or painful experience needs us to respond from our truest, authentic self? If so, we would learn from the experience how to emulate the love and compassion of the Creator. Then we wait for the wonder of what may come next. In this, we discover peace and freedom within.”

While I was out for a midday drive along James Walker Trail this past weekend, Tami’s words were echoing in my mind and heart as I glanced to the north across the Bow River to the attention-grabbing mottled green hillside near GlenEagles (in accompanying photo).

Do readers have ideas on what this mottled-green mystery hints at? Thanks, Tami, for your wisdom.

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