My mother tells a story from my childhood. I was about 3 years old. She packed a picnic basket, and we met my dad where he was working out in the field and ate lunch together. She spread a blanket on the ground for me to play on. I was content with a toy until a grasshopper landed next to me. I screamed until she put me in the car, safe from flying insects.

This story came to mind Saturday as I walked at Arrowhead Park just outside of Sioux Falls. The trails meander through a restored prairie built around an old quarry. It was a sunny autumn day with the sounds of fall harvest carried on the breeze. Grasshoppers were thick in the air. Many of them flew around me on the paved pathway, and a few even landed on my clothes. 

But this time, rather than being startled and feeling afraid, I rejoiced in their presence as a mirror of how far I have come in transforming my fear.

When I began spending time in nature about ten years ago, I still carried a lot of fear. I was afraid of grasshoppers, of course, but also spiders and snakes and encountering an animal (or even people) that might hurt me.

Over time as I became more grounded, I felt more secure with my surroundings. I could relax, enjoy being in nature, and open up to the healing energy, the peace, the discoveries. I trusted Mother Earth to keep me safe. A grasshopper could land on me, and I could see it as a fellow part of God’s creation, another visitor on Planet Earth to learn from.

And on Saturday, the grasshoppers carried a message:

When we jump headlong into the wind, we may get buffeted, taken on a detour, pushed in a direction we don’t want to go. If we persist, it takes a tremendous amount of our own energy to eventually get where we want to be. But when we take a leap with the wind and allow ourselves to be carried, we are propelled far further than we could go on our own.