RIVER FLOWS

If you could see my desk, you would see a very tall stack of blueprints of various designs (for a hope-filled life) waiting to be shared!  So many designs.  So little time.  (smile)

Then again, like a river, all things flow at the right time. 

The river has been my symbolic messenger for many years.     

It became my healer, carrying me whole-fully into the currents of the remainder of my life. 

In many ways the river had been my healer up to the point my shins and ankles entered the snow melted waters flowing down from the mountain ranges of the Olympic National Park.  I often stood metaphorically at the riverbanks reverently listening to its messages like one
of my favorite Maya Angelou quotes.  When we cast our bread upon the waters we can presume that someone downstream whose face we will never know will benefit from our action, as we who are downstream from another will profit from the grantor’s gift.

I also stand at the banks, routinely checking in with myself.  Am I paddling upstream or downstream in my thought process?   Like a magnet or the adage energy flows where
attention goes, sometimes I am paddling the oars like crazy upstream against the current instead of letting go of the oars for the canoe (my thoughts) to right side itself and flow with the
currents. 

A simple example.  I am trying to register for an on-line event and the only action happening is the relentless spin of an hourglass on my screen.  I go into further action mode.  Press the back arrow keys.  Open another session.  Use a second device.  Reboot one.  Or both devices. 

I am paddling upstream.  The Universe is offering me my dance-full grace between my patience and impatience.  Sometimes it is more.  Sometimes the Universe offers me discernment. What is my starting place in wanting to register?  After all, how we listen for the opportunities (and to each other) is not from what is being presented to us in writing or verbally.  It is our own starting places in how we are hearing. 

Am I registering for this event from a place of curiosity and to gain valuable information to pay forward?  Or am I registering because I am feeling some level of “not enough yet” and I perceive I will get to “enough” by taking part in the event.  This dance, too, one of my periodic waltzes
with grace.

The river has also been speaking to me of flowing with life in all its bends, turns, tributaries, and twists.  Of, in the words of a wise stranger who once crossed my path when wading in very cool waters to experience the Dead Sea, this is what life has brought, and so we make the best of it,
gratefully. 

I am beginning to embody her words, inhaling the grace they hold as aspiration for my daily approach with the river of life.  This is what the river of life is bringing.  I wish to be fully present making the best of this beautiful gift I’ve been given, embracing the day with overflowing gratitude, whatever the day may bring.   

I believe my paternal grandpa sent me this stranger.   He followed this encounter up with a sacred conversation with my aunt in which she gave me the gift of his humble words spoken his last days.  When she asked him if he held any anger at his life coming to a close at fifty-seven years old, his response.  Oh honey, there are so many people who would have given anything to have lived to be fifty-seven. 

Fifty-seven is not much further past my current age.   My grandpa’s gracious words now a compass as I navigate the river daily.   

Back to the park.  I entered the river, one foot, then the second, my mind whispering in tentative hope, may your pureness heal my legs.  My soul was whispering let go of the oars. 

The river responded back you have all you need, flow with me. 

First half of life.  Second half of life.  Not an exact middle.  But there is a point when we make a final push out of our cocoons.  We begin focusing on stretching our wings instead of the haven of the cocoon.   

My best example is from a life-changing book for me, Little Soul and the Sun. A soul wished to learn forgiveness in his next lifetime.   A second little soul offered to be the one enabling this soul’s biggest desire.  To do so, this little soul would have to do something that needed to be forgiven.   This little soul knew that once they both became human beings, the soul learning forgiveness would initially forget their loving agreement.   The soul would first need to
experience something to forgive. 

To then break out of its cocoon and be forgiving. 

Or, to stand in pure snow-melted waters and decide to stop shielding myself from being heard and seen.   I no longer needed to learn not feeling safe being heard and seen.  It was time to break out of the cocoon and

Be heard and seen.  

Including.  No, wait.  Especially. Within myself.  Of myself.    

I pondered sharing these photos.  Two are certainly not appealing river images! (smile) Yet they offer visual validation of the power of the mind when it aligns body and soul.  

They show what my cocoon was like and what happened from standing in the river, embodying its message you have all you need, flow with me.  

I am certain my grandpa was standing on the banks also whispering take in life, in all that it brings.   Be the grantor for others downstream.  It is time, you have all you need.  Inspire
others to fully step into the currents of hope-filled living.  Inspire their alignment to their own seeing and hearing.  

This is what the river of life brought me recently, standing in its pure waters.

And I am making the best of it, oh so gratefully!