6.9.20 // Reactions

Reactions.
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I've been thinking about reactions lately, mostly because of the reactions I've experienced from others and the ones I've given to the world.
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In my mind, you have two options when life gives you something to react over.
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Those two options are like this beautiful cactus, found perched on the edge of a daunting precipice.
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You could react like the thorns. Your thorns masquerading as a battle-cry, while they really act as a senseless retreat of defense. You can respond with hate, with apathy, with frustration, with a close-mind. You can claim that "my way" is best and shut down the rest. You can close yourself off, you can push others away, you can close off anyone outside of your community. Exiling yourself, hiding behind the thorns disguised as swords.
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You could react like the flower. You could bloom. You could let your petals reach towards the sky and open to the often unknown surroundings. You could grow day after day. Growth that is so innate in your cells that reaching towards the light and towards more is no more natural than the sun rising every morning. The horizon you hold expanding with each day even though the growth is not without occasional growing pains, shedding of old skin. You can respond with love, sharing your colors, and scents with the world, a display of vulnerability even when it could have been so easy to stay closed.
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Lately, more often than not, I've been the prickly cactus.
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I'd be lying if I said I was gracefully handling all of my reactions during these tumultuous times. But, I'm working on it.
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All we can do is keep working on it, working on ourselves, working towards reactions that are as open, as soft, and as vulnerable as a flower.