Don’t Rush the Aftermath

An excerpt from The Light Within: Taking Care of Each Moment with Acceptance, Enjoyment and Enthusiasm (July, 2020)

Ye shall conceive chaff, ye shall bring forth stubble
- Isaiah 33:11

The word aftermath literally means the “after mow,” an agricultural term. Think of a wheat field that’s just been harvested. It’s mostly stubble and dry stalk debris. Not much grows there, at the moment.

This goes back to resilience. If you have truly experienced devastation and a complete levelling, nothing should be growing in that wheat field for a while, maybe a long while.

The Aftermath is a transition phase. It’s like one of the stages of grief identified by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

It’s not always easy, or advisable, to progress to the next phase without fully living out the phase you’re in.

We’re in the Aftermath of something now. It’s an equation we can’t solve.

Respect the Magnitude.

Accept the Devastation.

Don’t rush the Aftermath.

(photo by author: outside Sequim, Olympic Peninsula, WA, August 2019)