Nature Isn’t Always Sexual

Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree Ebb and Flow.

Over three months ago, around the end of July, my guides told me that the man in my meditations feared he would do something  to hurt  me, something  that would break my heart. I asked if he had ever done anything to hurt me and was told no, but he fears that something in his nature might cause me grief.

I cringed at the expression  “in his nature.” Until this morning.

There’s an old story about a man who encounters a scorpion (or a snake, depending on the story) at a river’s edge and the scorpion asks to be carried across the water so it won’t drown. The man tells the scorpion that if he does carry it across the water, the scorpion will sting him before  they cross the river and then they’ll both drown. The scorpion promises the man that it won’t and the man finally  relents.  Half-way  across  the  river,  the  scorpion stings the man and they both begin to sink.

“Why did you sting me?” the man cries out with his dying breath. “You promised you wouldn’t sting me.”

The scorpion’s last words? “I couldn’t help it—it’s in my nature.”

Most of my life, I’ve heard “I couldn’t help it—it’s in my nature” spoken by men who couldn’t keep their pants zipped.  By  virtue  of  being  male,  it  was  oh,  so  much harder to be faithful than for women and by virtue of being male and biologically predestined  to spread their genetic material  over  as much  fertile  ground  as possible, their  nature  warranted  automatic  forgiveness,  with  or without any repenting. I’ve always considered it a cop-out whenever a man told me that. A get-out-of-jail-free  card. If a man is really so weak as that, then perhaps his wife should  keep  him  in  chastity  to  help  him  control  his “nature.”

This morning, I realized that “nature” isn’t always sexual. It can also be in someone’s “nature” to be shy or ambivalent or insecure in certain matters. It can be in someone’s “nature” to bury themselves in their careers or their art so that they don’t have to address their own pain. It can be in someone’s  “nature”  to be loving, supportive, compassionate, creative, and exciting, too.

There must be a million different things that can be in someone’s  “nature” that might be construed as possible areas of contention  or grief for me, a million different things that I  can  deal with easier than one might think, but the one type of “nature” that I focused on was probably the one that I could deal with the least well of all.

I don’t know if that’s just a product of my raisings or if it’s in my nature, but fearing the worst is another pattern I seek to break.