Choosing to move is a big step. One family, let's say the Browns, makes a momentous decision to move, and the home they vacate motivates another family, the Lees, to move into their old home, becoming a new place of comfort and joy for them. And the place that the Browns chose as their new home meant that another family, the Guptas, left their place of familiarity and comfort for a new home, where another family, the Mallards, have just vacated, etc.
This ripple effect of families affected by a choice to move is ubiquitous no matter when and where we choose to take that first fierce step. The average American moves 11.7 times in her/his lifetime, meaning about every 5-7 years, many of us are moving. (https://www.consumeraffairs.com/movers/moving-statistics.html) If we could generate a story thread for every family's microcosmic journey of migration - and this would track only voluntary relocations - the relational effects would be staggering to the imagination.
What are the implications? Palms up! And all that signifies! Receiving, vulnerability, trust, gratitude, humility, openness, the unknown...
Moving of our own choice is not just about us and our particular family. Cherished neighbors will miss us, and they will be challenged to open their hearts and trust to a new family when we leave. New neighbors that surround us when we move to a new home will have to relinquish their patterns and ways of relating to the old homeowners when you come to live among them with your own family's unique strengths, quirks, gifts, and vulnerabilities.
On a larger scale, neighborhoods and communities are welcoming new families all the time, and their tensile strength is directly affected by how well they accept, bolster, and nurture their new relationships, providing space - and maybe even rituals - for mourning the ones who have departed, and welcoming the ones who enter their community with palms up - ready and hopeful for a new beginning.
The natural world teaches us valuable lessons about adaptive change, improvising, and moving forward through processes of symbiotic exchange. In the natural realm, adaptation relates directly to biological fitness and generates the rate of resilience, and healthy evolution. As two or more species co-adapt and co-evolve, they develop inter-dependently and commingle with other species, such as flowering plants and pollinating insects. They work together, survive, become stronger, and thrive as symbiotic partners. This is the hermeneutical key to the life force thrumming in the biosphere - the ability to co-adapt creatively, and for the benefit of the whole eco-system.
If we are getting ready to move, we notice and take care to prepare for all the effects that moving has on us, our children, elders, friends, and those who struggle with psychological, physical, and emotional stress and anxiety. It affects our creature-kin, our canines, felines, avian-kin, and any other creatures who are part of our family. And as we are learning, all life forms in the biosphere - wild and domestic - are affected when we encroach upon or devastate their habitat without taking responsibility for our own actions. Remember, we are not alone. When we move, entire communities, human and other-than-human, are shifting and changing, learning to adapt and improvise as our own unique strengths, gifts, and vulnerabilities are added to the swirling pool of "all our relations." Truly. We are not alone.
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