Suspended Animation
The Seasons of Our Life.
There is a moment in everybody’s life when everything seems to freeze. It’s a moment that can last for long, and when you’re stuck there, nothing works, nothing moves, nothing progresses, and nothing lasts. It’s a moment of death and rebirth. But you don’t know that, yet.
A similar phenomenon exists in nature and it goes under the name of suspended animation. Which doesn’t need to be confused with what is ordinarily called hibernation, even if they have very much in common.
Suspended animation it’s a fascinating phenomenon that makes you think how powerful nature could be. Suspended animation is simply the pausing, or stopping of life, without terminating life itself. And if you ever heard the story of the North American wood frog, you may want to know what that little cute toad is able to undergo, all on its own.
Even though there have been many successful experiments showing the possibility to actually stop life, even in humans, this is not what I meant to talk about.
Suspended animation reminds me of one of the longest and darkest periods of my life. Which in the end turned out to be one of the most beautiful. But at that time I simply didn’t know that. And the only thing I could see was darkness, inside and out.
At that time, while my heart and my entire life were freezing to death, I truly felt a part of me was dead. I truly felt that what I was experiencing had nothing to do with what I was told about life itself. I truly felt what means feeling nothing, yet to be able to breathe, to eat, and at some extension, to exist.
Why do you think we have those moments in life? Why, do you think somehow, somewhere, sometimes, we freeze? And wherever we go, everything seems to tell us to stop?
Well, I don’t know you, but I have come to realize that life itself is made out of just four seasons. And all you need to know is that if you’ve started freezing, shaking, and crumbling, perhaps you are just entering the longest, coldest, and darkest season of your life: Winter. And all you need to do is to let the winter in you, just like the little North American wood frog would do.
Summer is the season we are all born. And summer is the season we will all die. But winter, and spring, are the seasons that take the most and give the best out of our entire life. And here is why.
When we are born there is an explosion of light. It’s warm. It’s fun. It’s easy. It’s fast. And happy, most of the time. Perhaps not so happy for many of us, yet still enjoyable and somehow everything seems still very lightful and joyful and easy to carry on with. Until Autumn starts. This is the time we start looking back to reflect on what was. We now understand where we come from, we don’t have many answers yet, but we start putting together a few pieces here and there and we notice that something doesn’t fit quite well. We have the ability to understand the meaning of things but we don’t know what are the right questions to ask. So we don’t. We keep walking, free and careless, but days are becoming shorter and time moves slower. Something heavy is putting a break to what before was a fast race. Something between us and what’s not us is creating a space made of dim dust. There is a veil between here and there. And the sun is not that warm anymore. We don’t know where to look first, but we have an idea that perhaps happiness is not what we once felt. And definitely, it’s not what we have been told. Surely happy is not what we are. Clearly, there are still many things to discover about us. Therefore, Winter starts. This is the time we freeze to death. This is the time we retreat. This is the time we almost die, only to come back to life, with a new, more authentic, and fearless light.
The best way to survive winter is not to fight it. But to let it in. Let it freeze you inside out. Let it push you where you have never been before. Let the winter show you how deep your roots can grow. Let the cold show you how strong your heart can be. And let the darkness show how bright your light is. And then come back, when Spring arrives, and let it be the dawn of your new life. The life you were always meant to live. The life you have been dreaming since you were a child when you were running wild with no idea about all the nonsense we are talking about now.
Spring is indeed the most beautiful season of all because it’s when we finally find our place in this world. It is when we give meaning to our lives only to create more life, soak with so much love and all the good stuff we found in the deepest of our hearts just while we thought we were dead.
Until another Summer sadly arrives. And this time we know it won’t last too long and there won’t be another season coming afterward. For sure, not in this world and not in this corner of the universe. But we know that at least we have lived fully and if that’s the case, we truly don’t care about what’s next. We are grateful to have had the chance to experience all the seasons of our life, and we are ready to let go of everything that once was us.
Knowing that the best of us will always remain in the heart of the people we truly touched and that our light will keep shining through the eyes of those we once inspired with our Courage, with our Authenticity, and with our Love.
