This article was re-published by permission in the Puget Sound Zen Center’s blog. It was also re-published by permission in the Wilderness Center’s blog. Thanks to both for your interest in our work!
As the winter solstice passes and the New Year begins, I hear excited whispers about snow and look out to the early blackness as dinner simmers on the stove. The falling leaves, the cessation of growth, the turning of movement from branches to roots, the warmth of decomposition, the stillness of death, the stealth of the hunters, the bounty of apple harvests-all these seasonal happenings carry great metaphors for living our human lives.
One of the biggest metaphors contained in our seasons, and other natural cycles, is that of uncontrollable change. Nature can help us deal with fear surrounding the fact that some changes are beyond our control. At the same time, it shows us that sometimes change can yield unanticipated beauty, and delight us with surprises.
As a new mother, I stumbled upon the power of nature to teach my kids about change when my son Orion was about 3. It all started as I was making him toast one morning. I cut it in four pieces as I had always done. My boy looked at the toast as I placed it in front of him. “Mama, I don’t want it cut that way. I just want it one line down the middle.” I asked him to eat it like it was because it was already cut and promised to cut it in two the next time.
What followed was quite an amazing transformation. My formerly sweet, calm, and patient son turned red, his eyes filled with tears, and he fell on the ground screaming “NO! Put it back! I want it back together again! Put it back together!” I started to explain that you can’t put toast back together after it has been cut but quickly realized that my explanation was not helping in the least. After holding him until he calmed down I suggested that we stick a note to the toaster for next time that said “Mama, please only cut my toast once down the middle. Thank you.” He seemed okay with that. Phew! I congratulated my shaky self on getting through that one. Little did I know it was only the beginning.
Over the following weeks our house became peppered with Post- it notes, each signifying a tantrum or crying bout. On the floor: “Papa, please don’t pick up the train tracks at night.” On the Lego box: “Mama, please don’t take apart any Lego towers even if you are trying to free up pieces for me to use.” On the car dashboard: “Mama, please go home from town by turning at Sound Foods instead of going straight.” Around the same time Orion quit his favorite beach game of throwing sticks in the water: he didn’t want to lose the sticks.
I finally recognized a pattern; Orion was struggling with situations that he could not reverse or control. The toast could never be put back together again no matter what. It upset him that we picked up his train tracks because there never would be another train track configuration exactly the same. If he threw a stick in the water, he would never be able to hold the same stick again. Ever.
On a walk one winter day, Orion and I smelled an awful smell. As it became stronger I realized it was a dead deer. Before I could find it Orion pointed to the side of the road. “Look,” he said.
“A deer” I said.
“It smells really bad!”
We laughed, “yes!”
“What is it doing there? “
“It’s dead.”
“Why?”
“It probably got hit by a car.”
“But, why is it dead?”
The questions kept coming as Orion struggled to understand the idea of permanent change. When he finally started to understand he started crying. He asked everything about this deer, things I would never know about its life. Tears were flowing down his face, but he didn’t budge.
Then I noticed the maggots. I figured that it couldn’t get much worse for him so why not forge ahead? “Orion,” I said, “look at these”. I explained that these maggots and worms– and little things so small we couldn’t even see them– were eating the deer and helping it turn into soil. Then we talked about how the soil became food for the grass growing on the side of the road. Orion smiled and said, “And then! A deer will eat the grass and the deer will be a deer again!” I told him that it would not be the same deer and that maybe a horse would come by and eat the grass instead, or a mouse. He thought about parts of the deer becoming a mouse or a horse or another deer. The tears stopped.
We said goodbye to the dead deer and enjoyed breathing fresh air again as we walked home. Over the next few weeks that deer was a common conversation topic. Orion told his dad about the deer that was becoming dirt, and we went back to look at it to see how it had changed. Orion drew parallels to the fallen leaves.
“Mama, the alder leaves are turning to dirt just like the deer.”
“You’re right.”
“And, then do the alder tree roots eat them again and grow strong?”
Meanwhile, the Post-it notes became fewer and farther between. But they were still there.
At the beach, Orion still refused to throw sticks or stones but he really wanted to. He would pick up a stick and head to the water and then say, “but I don’t want to lose it.” And he’d sit there wrestling with himself. I struggled between the urge to laugh and my strong underlying sense of worry. Finally, I burst out, “Just throw it!”
“What?” he asked, puzzled at my exasperation.
“If you throw it, the stick won’t be here anymore, but it will get to float to new and exciting places. You will have fun throwing it, and you will get to pick out a brand new beautiful stick next time. Things change and are lost, but new things come when the old things go. And those new things can be wonderful too. ”
He looked at me. “Mama, I won’t have fun throwing it.”
“What?”
“You said I would have fun throwing it, but I won’t have fun throwing it because I won’t be able to get it back and that will make me sad.” No sticks thrown that day.
More time went by. The deer was becoming unrecognizable and it didn’t smell as much. Grass and weed seedlings were starting to sprout from the dirt in the areas between the rib cage bones. Orion always stopped to look at it when we walked by. But he didn’t say much about it anymore.
The dead deer several months after we first saw it.
Early one winter afternoon, we went to KVI beach. As we walked over the bridge, Orion reflexively picked up a stick and threw it in the water below. He ran across to the other side and watched it float out. “Look!” he said smiling as he watched it slowly spin and float away. I tried not to look too surprised as we watched that stick spiral toward Puget Sound. We spent the rest of the afternoon there, throwing things off the bridge.
I don’t know quite what it was that Orion finally figured out for himself, or how much the deer, alder leaves, and sticks had to do with it. But I suspect that in some way those experiences in nature helped him learn to deal with changes he couldn’t control, including change in his own life. And through the process, I learned to trust in change as well, and to let my son have his own seasons and cycles. Like all of us, my son still struggles sometimes with big transitions and permanent change but within reason. The Post-it note era is thankfully behind us and I know that our experiences in nature together had something to do with it.
Further reading: The Children and Nature Network is a great resource for the most accurate and current information on child development and nature.