TOTAL READ TIME: 3 MINUTES
There is a plant called Skunk Cabbage; do you know of it? It’s a bold gesture of spring, with its’ thick stem and broad leaves sprouting up in big pastures within brown, mucky swamps of our forests. It is stunningly beautiful (if you like cabbage, that is). However, when I break off a piece, its’ rotted garbage scent makes me want to run away.
To humans and other mammals, Skunk Cabbage is poison. It therefore smells like a repellant for this reason: to keep us away. However, to pollinators like bees and butterflies, it is an attractive aphrodisiac.
Skunk cabbage is like pure love to pollinators and pure poison to people.
I wonder if bees and butterflies refer to it as Skunk Cabbage, too? Nah – they have likely named it Cloud Nine or Heaven on Earth.
Perhaps I’m a Skunk Cabbage. I’m sure my personality is dull, offensive or maybe even repelling. That’s ok. Because on the other side of the coin, I’m sure that to others, my personality may be funny, inquisitive and maybe even inviting.
Skunk Cabbage reminds me that we each give off our unique scent – our own vibration that attracts or repels others. I’m not meant to be liked by everyone. I’m not meant to be understood by everyone. Some people may scratch their head about my life and the choices that I make. That’s okay. Sometimes I don’t understand other Skunk Cabbages out there either.
Meanwhile, as some people are repelled, others are drawn into my life so perfectly. New friends that emerge out of thin air. New co-workers and collaborators. New people that are meant to be in my life – whether it be for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
Many of us are shifting our lives right now, whether we planned it or not. Perhaps we have stepped into deeper love and knowingness within ourselves. Perhaps we have stepped into an abyss of uncertainty. Life is architecting and arranging us all into new chapters, new communities, new vehicles of service and new ways of being.
Given this context, it’s easy to come to peace with those that are turning around and exiting my dance floor. At the very same time, it allows the space for those beautiful bees and butterflies to find me and come dance with life.
Let’s dance.