. . . in [fill in the blank], wait five minutes. It will change. I’ve lived in several different parts of the United States, and although I have found great differences between Denver and Nashville, Michigan and Missouri, the one thing all those places have in common is that locals will use that phrase.  If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes. It will change. 

But, that’s about rain and wind.  What about life changes? Those don’t exactly come along every five minutes.  Do they? Well, maybe not every five minutes, but each one of us goes through many transformations in the course of a lifetime. 

Some changes happen like an explosion.  Maybe a happy explosion, but still abruptly, instantaneously, out of the blue. You win the lottery. You get an unexpected promotion. You go viral on social media. You lose a friend. 

My father passed away unexpectedly when he was just 71 years old. That news came like an explosion. Like a tsunami of grief. 

Some changes happen like erosion. Slowly over time, without even feeling the movement, you shift. Life is different. It may not feel different from yesterday, but if you could place today and one day years ago side by side, the change would be stark and undeniable. 

Spiritual transformation can be explosive or erosive or maybe even both. It can be eruptive, emotive, elegant, electric, . . . it all depends on the weather.  And the good news is, if you don’t like your interior weather or the type of spiritual evolution it’s bringing, you can change it.  Every five minutes, if you feel like it.  

The slow change of erosion comes about from hearing the same messages, engaging in the same practices and rituals, reading, learning, meditating, and letting our awareness unfold gently like a flower.  It is the gentle erosion of the ego that slowly uncovers the true self. 

The fast change of spiritual explosion can happen at any moment that we completely uncover the flame of our essence and reach the enlightenment that is the knowledge of our true selves. This instantaneous awakening often gets a lot of attention, a lot of books written about it, a lot of seminars and workshops created to help bring it about.  But I have found that it often happens after years of that slow erosive work. Enlightenment might appear to be a sudden occurrence, but it usually comes after years of preparation. 

We simmer before we boil.