RIPPLES

I have begun to think of life as a series of ripples widening out from an original center. – Seamus Heaney

Among the top million things I love about the power of words is that a single word is not singular in the meaning it holds. 

In its influence.  

In its inspiration. 

In the ripples it casts when written, read, spoken, heard. 

Meaning is found in a word through how it is threaded and weaved into words in a sentence.   

Meaning is given in how a word vibrates and reverberates among the sounds of a voice when the speaker chooses which words to stitch together before the tones they select echo into another’s ears.     

How a word is threaded into the seam of a sentence has the power to create a design in another’s mind. 

Further meaning is given to a word from one’s starting place through the words they already gathered and associated meaning to.  This starting place determines how words are heard when cast at them.

A word can deepen in its meaning over time.   Through generations.   Through perceptions.  

A word can hold great meaning through its ability to connect.  Isolation decreases in direct proportion to increased belonging.   A word can close the gap between not fitting in and knowing commonality. 

Sometimes a word strengthens and deepens in a meaningful way it was ingested by the person who grabbed a hold of it and internalized it into recesses of their heart so as not to lose the feelings that the word stirred.   

A word’s meaning can bind.   To a sense of control.   To hope.   To Faith.   To affirm.  To commitment.   To a reason to change.   To a reason to keep the same.   

A word’s meaning can evolve, traced back through translation.  Through origin.   Through interpretation.   

Take the word unconditional.  

Thread and weave it with the word love.

Cast ripples from its combination.

Words are not singular in the meaning they hold.  

Because none of us are singular in how we hear and see.   Nor do we stand in the same pair of shoes at the same starting line.      

If I look up the definition of unconditional love, besides finding 374,000 results per google, I read the words showing love for another person without considering how it will benefit you or what you will get in return. (extracted from verywellmind.com)

I’ve tended to think of unconditional love as not having conditions in which someone receives love.   I’ve often given meaning to these two words stitched together with the thought that it is a pure love to strive for, one in which things like frustration or anger don’t exist. 

I’ve held onto the meaning I’ve given to unconditional love through the weaved together words and vibrating sounds of veteran voices sharing their stories of their service dogs.  These amazing cold noses and pawed feet souls who aid veterans in healing on their journeys with pain, trauma, sorrow, despair, and grief because these fur souls do not judge, and they accept a veteran in totality.  Every word that comprises a veteran’s lived story, making a veteran all that they are as a human being, is held in love without condition in the eyes and ears – and heart – of a service dog. 

Like the quote by an unknown author reads I aspire to be the person my dog thinks I am.   My mind’s starting place has woven unconditional love into the seam of this sentence. 

Recently, while in dialogue with someone very dear to my life, I had an ah-ha about my framed meaning of unconditional love.   I saw and saw again the meaning I had been giving these two words.   I saw where unconditional love has the ability to be the most present when what is most present is a reason to feel conditional.   When imperfection is front and center, unconditional love is center stage.  

I think about the girls.  (If you have been reading other Blueprints, you know the girls are aka for Ginger and Kutana, two cold noses and pawed feet unconditionally loving souls who, by the way, also happen to always supervise when a Blueprints post is being written.  Like now, one to my left and other on my right side.)   

Unconditionally loving they both are.  

Non-stop, true.  Certainly their I love you eyes are present when I am rubbing a belly or scratching a neck or grabbing a blanket to cover them up.   Or best of all to them, when I am reaching for a treat that will soon be theirs. 

But, even more, how quickly they let go, move on, forgive and forget if they are corrected or told no.   For a very split-second Kutana might not appreciate the moment I am redirecting her insistence to use her extremely gifted nose to investigate where the geese have been because I am not in sync with her thoughts that what the geese have left behind is edible candy.   Or Ginger might not appreciate the moment I am unable to honor the royalty in her because getting her body wet in the rain is a must since her lavatory is outdoors. 

For dogs, what is present in the boundary or the requirement is unwavering love, love that will not gain a condition because of a temporary undesired course-correction.  

What doesn’t ever erode is love.      

I like this visual.   Within each of us humans are this jumbled mixture of messiness, like the clump of roots in the sand.   But deep down, underneath what we can’t see is a spool from which all threads originate. 

Or a chime from which all sounds begin.      

A center from which all things ripple and cascade downward and outward.  Cascading into every moment for what we decide to stitch and weave and vibrate and reverberate together.  

Through the power of our words we write, speak, read, hear. 

That center deep down referred to as our souls.  

That part of us that is born of nothing but pure   

Love.    

I love the word grace.  

I struggle to find right words to describe why.  

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines grace as implying a benign attitude.   Benign, defined as showing gentleness and kindness. 

Through its multitude of perspectives, google searching offers assistance in defining grace as acceptance.   The exercise of love.   Mercy (compassion or forgiveness towards others, especially those less fortunate).   Disposition to benefit or serve another.  Something done or given in grace is done so without expecting to receive anything in return. 

I think of my grandparents who always said let us say grace before meals.   Bless this food to our bodies. 

Novelist Anne Lamott says it well.  I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.  

Each year my mom, sister, niece and I select a theme for our advent calendars to guide what we gather for filling each other’s twenty-four days of December.   This past year my theme was grace.  

To guide my mom and sister in calendar fillings, I referenced a definition from Oxford simple elegance or refinement of movement; “she moved through the water with effortless grace”.  I offered they also think: grace with life’s flow.  Grace like the gentleness of deer.  Dance of grace between opposites. 

Grace was my intentional word for all of 2023.  

Yes, dear Ms. Lamott, grace meets us where we are when we hold an intention that it will.

We are never the same once it does. 

Grace always shocks.  Grace always stuns.  Grace is always what we need.   It’s what everyone groping around lost in the dark has to know.  Turn towards grace and you turn on all the lights.  – Ann Voskamp

Like the sudden shock when a bird hits our picture window.   The little one lying stunned on the grass as I rush to my shoes, then door, then to a feathered being with intended hope that my compassion and gentle grace will provide what is needed for the little one to choose to fly again. 

Like this dear little Chickadee chose to do. 

Flying again, but no longer the same.  

Just as I, too, changed, now observing chickadees in a new way.   Curious if one of them at the feeder is my new friend.    Retaining awe in being able to hold a winged friend in my hand, against my heart, for a few brief moments. 

Ah, but then again, it only takes one brief moment to experience a profound shift.  

To spread one’s wings.   And fly.      

Grace always shocks. 

Like the sudden shock when my lap met boiling water in mid-December.  In an instance of shocking pain, I received a profound gift of stunning grace.

Now I ponder how best to articulate in an inspiring blueprint you can utilize. My ability to articulate may prove as challenged as my attempt to define the beauty, elegance, and significance of grace. 

Each of us has lesson plans our souls desire to learn in our lifetimes.   One of my most favorite (and life changing for me) books, The Little Soul and the Sun, describes wanting to experience what it means to forgive.   The book also highlights many other words one might choose to learn in a lifetime, like being kind, sharing, gentle, creative, patient, and helpful.   

To name a few things we humans may wish to learn.     

For the longest time I thought one of my words was hope, yet where I sometimes struggled to connect with this is that I didn’t remember a time in life where I felt hopeless.   Not that I needed to feel and experience hopelessness to desire to learn hope.  But, since I believe that because we don’t recall what we want to learn when we enter this life in human form, we first experience elements of the opposite so that we can have experiences to teach and grow us – i.e. to learn the essence of hope is to know the absence of hope. 

At times I’ve thought one of my words was forgiveness.       

I’ve certainly believed it was several words combined.   Comfort in my own skin.  

Then grace shocked, handing me its elegance.   In the searing moment of immediate skin shedding through the flaming delivery of hot water, I surrendered the deep and unconscious belief and fear that I had been holding onto.   

Oh, tis true the words that we teach what we most wish to learn.   I, one to reframe stories for others, guiding that they see and see again, needed the sacred gift of grace’s shock to help me frame my own differently. 

I needed to experience burning away the remaining old skin tattooed (figuratively) with the belief that I was selfish to be seen and heard in my own skin.   

So that in the new skin I could see my soul’s deepest wish that had been there all along.  

I needed to dance with grace to my center, recognizing that in my struggle with a fear of selfishness was the conflict with my heart’s deepest desire in how it wanted to be seen and heard.      

Generous.  My soul’s choosing for this lifetime.    

Generous in compassion. 

In inspiration not to give up on this beautiful life.  

In time given to others.   In gift-giving.  

In nonjudgment, dignity, unconditional listening.  

In faith.  In hope.  

In teaching the power of words.   For words determine the life we will experience.   What words are chosen.  How they are spoken, written, read, and heard.  

Generous in words that offer wisdom.   That strive to be Nature’s worthy messenger.      

In words that offer

grace. 

What story might you be telling yourself that deserves your grace?  

We are beginning anew, an unchartered horizon ahead of us as we begin a new year.  My wish for you, may 2024 include gentleness and kindness, acceptance, the exercise of love.  

May you move through the water [of this very beautiful life] with effortless grace.

May you always catch your breath, spread your wings, and fly. 

Peeling back the onion.   

On that walk up the spiral staircase in which we come back around but we are no longer in the same place.   

At least that is what I have often thought each time I “purge and reorganize” around home.   In my routine practice of “letting go to let come”, I have felt a sensation I was peeling back layers to get to the core.  

And once I got to the core, there I would find what I hadn’t yet discovered.  

“Yet” being the key word.   For a part of my internal dance of grace between opposites has been gratitude for all the abundance in my life.  For people including those with fur and cold noses.  The ways I get to serve with my gifts of writing, coaching, and teaching.  My body’s ability to run and hike.  Nature.   All that is my life.    

And on the other side of the dance floor is my internal voice moving my feet to the lyrics “once you _________________, then”.   Filling in the blank could be anything in which I have consciously and often unconsciously wired a communication to my dancing feet not yet, once you have gained enough knowledge, expertise, wisdom, experience.   Once you discover.  

I paused my recent “purge and reorganize” to spend time with family selecting their Christmas trees.   

I observed the pine tree standing tall, its top and bottom branches of one side of its body shaped in a Charlie Brown tree perfection.   (I’ve always loved the Christmas trees best that are imperfectly perfect like the Charlie Brown Peanuts cartoon tree.)    I found myself drawn to this tree that had not given up flourishing, despite being shadowed for a time by the neighboring tree, evidenced by outstretched branches missing on the other side of its body.   

I knew others didn’t see its beauty if they saw this tree at all.  I thought it breathtaking.   Regal.  Adaptive.  Resilient.   Hopeful.   Graceful. 

I thought of the tree that had been next to it, imagining the person who thought it beautiful and “perfect” for adorning a home for the holidays.   The tree now fulfilling the next phase of its purpose, to bring such things as Connectedness, Celebration, Joy, and Lasting Memories as people gather around its decorated beauty.  Its purpose of bringing such things as shelter, a resting perch, and oxygen now fulfilled. 

It could become the tree it was meant to be because of this magnificent “Charlie Brown” tree next to it who had grown exactly as it chose to grow.  Who had chosen to grow.     

I returned to my purging/ reorganizing mission thinking about the tree remaining and the story of the tree next to it, the story now revealed in a circle of rings.  

I read long forgotten words in yearbooks and childhood letters.   I uncovered pictures I no longer remembered once snapped by a camera as smiles looking at me offered the grace of gratitude and fond memories. 

I discovered Already. 

That the person in me who hears and sees the voices who struggle to believe their voices are worthy of being heard and that they are worthy of being seen was that person on the lower steps of the spiral staircase listening and seeing “then”, as I do now.   That compassion, generosity, and kindness are not something I acquired further up the spiral staircase.   That in the eyes of some, I was already partnering with Wisdom in how I saw and heard the world around me.  

I discovered one of my first writings from many years ago, and immediately my inner whisper spoke the words from Elizabeth’s Gilbert’s “Eat, Love, Pray” book I thought about one of my favorite Sufi poems…which says…a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen.

A path wove through the field of wildflowers in a grassy knoll near the majestic oak tree.
The sun streamed through each vibrant colored leaf.
There was a soft breeze, and the sky a brilliant blue.
It is there, each gathered, each seeking truth.
One was young, cancer having taken her young life.
Another, a long full life, had left earth when his body stopped after he had lost his mind.
She didn’t survive the auto accident when her car lost control.
And he wants to know his family is okay; he imagines he hurt them when he took his own life to go.
A child with birth defects didn’t see age five.
And together dad and son sat, wondering how she would do since they didn’t survive.
The angel came into the center among them all…
-Christine Hassing

There is more to this writing, but I will save it for a different blueprint another day. 

When we let go, we let come.   

When we let go, of once then, we discover Already.  

That as we move up the spiral staircase, we are also expanding our rings. 

Maybe it isn’t so much peeling back the onion to reach a core but is to look at the core and marvel at the circling rings.  

And to realize that no matter the size, the rings leave a footprint.  The rings can provide shelter and sanctuary for life long after they have stopped expanding.   Some rings will not expand because it is time for those surrounding them to expand into their own becoming.  Some rings have planted seeds for the next generations who may one day bring joy in December to families.

From the moment it’s planted, a tree is already leaving an imprint on all its surroundings.  

From the core ring outward and upward, each of us makes a difference.  

Already. 

P.S.  I am honored to have my writings included with many wonderful women writers in an anthology titled, Mothers and Mentors: The Art of Nurturing, To read many inspirational and moving stories from a variety of authors, a copy can be purchased at this link.  https://a.co/d/cpWxavy

Beautiful.

In the words of Ansel Adams, I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful – an endless prospect of magic and wonder.

When I take Ansel Adam’s words and integrate them with Albert Einstein’s words there are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle, you can live as if everything is a miracle, the result is

An awe-filling encounter one early September evening.  

Gosh, I am not even sure what to refer to the large gathering of dragonflies that graced our yard on a particular night.  Swarm?  Flock?  Less important the name of this flying community; most important was how incredibly breathtaking it was to witness their joyous dancing across the ballroom sky.   Twirls, swoops, dips.  Pendulum swings left and right.   Sideways figure eights in their elegant glides. 

Perhaps they were trying to spell to me, I-N-F-I-N-I-T-Y.

Another inspiring word to me like H-O-P-E.

Their wings would catch the light, twinkling daylight stars periodically glowing in oblong circular motions.  Though I hold every intention you can witness this spectacular sight in a video I will share, I know the clip will fall short of you being able to see through my eyes the September evening I welcomed at least forty dragonflies as our temporary guests. 

My beloved Roo played a part in this magical encounter, as evidenced in the moon that was starting to make an appearance for the night.   She was nudging me to see and see again, to hear and hear again. 

To revisit words in the first few pages of my memoir, life brings moments we wish wouldn’t, or never had to, take place. When we find purpose in each one…We find the ability to bravely and gracefully move through life, through every up and down we are certain to experience.

And if we embrace the purpose, we know unconditional love.

We know what it is to feel the essence of love. 

I recently shared with someone that when we experience loss, it might feel like our heart is breaking apart, but I believe it is our heart making room to know more and greater love. 

 I remember as a little girl, my mom and I found a yellow tiger kitten alongside the road on a cold rainy night.  I named him Morris, after the commercial cat, and loved him with my petting and cuddles all the way home, about a forty-minute drive.    

My mind remembers it as the next day, but it may have been a few days later that Morris found warm refuge under the hood of a recently turned off vehicle which was not a safety zone for survival the next time the vehicle was started.   At the time, I was only aware of my grief.  

I now look into my heart and see where it expanded at the spot that Morris touched.  Water to a seed in learning that no matter the length of the dash between birth and death, to experience such things as gentleness, kindness, compassion, and most of all love is to have experienced the…beauty of life.

And I am certain my next feline loves such as Mountain Dew and Topper knew even greater love from me because I knew what it was to lose a purring friend.   I wanted to hold Mountain Dew and Topper even tighter because I didn’t want something to happen to either of them.  

I extract more words from the first few pages of my memoir.  A person facing loss starts to see beauty where their eyes and their heart were clouded by a to-do list or by a sense tomorrow is always guaranteed. When their perspective shifts, what begins to matter most is what someone else still takes for granted. To watch a sunset—to really watch a sunset—is nothing short of beautiful and extraordinary.

I find I am pausing more to really watch a sunset. 

To linger my eyes longer at which winged visitors are at the bird feeder outside my office window. 

To observe every eager step Ginger takes to run to the garage to let her dad know breakfast is ready, to laugh at her special woo woo woo sound she makes to get his attention because the garage door is closed, to feel my heart swell with love for her as she comes running back so proud that she got his attention.  

To be present with the fun of cutting vegetables on the cutting board, not just because of the enjoyment of preparing to cook something tasty, but because I am in anticipation that soon Kutana will either be peeking around the corner of the cupboard or inches from my hip certain one of the vegetables is a slice of carrot with her name on it.   To feel my heart surge with love as I look into her expressive eyes staring from me to the carrot to me with a mixture of excitement and gratitude. 

To voice I love you to those in my life I am blessed to have filling my heart with the knowing of what love feels like.  To be the recipient of their love.   To be the giver of mine. 

My pauses are happening more and more as many people are experiencing loss in one form or another.   Or many. 

The more that someone’s grief, pain, trauma, sorrow, or despair crosses my path, the more I feel my heart expand in love for all that has been and is my life. 

My focus narrows to seeing all that is beautiful and breathtaking right in front of me.

I reflect on the wise words “you can’t take it with you” in reference to our material possessions when we reach our last breath.   The one thing we do each take, though, is

Love.

How much we collected in our hearts. 

In the words of Rumi, A breath of love can take you all the way to infinity.

And dancing dragonflies can remind us, life is

A beautiful flight. 

In 2022 when hiking a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail, I carried two dog treats in a fanny pack around my waist.  This year’s hiking adventure in the Olympic National Park involved bear canisters.  Thinking it best I not wear the treats around my waist, I carried them in the bottom of my canister instead.  In the words of my sister when preparing to hike the PCT after mentioning someone suggested we sleep with our food under sleeping bags, of which I would be sleeping in a hammock.  That feels like lathering honey on yourself and saying, “here I am”.  Ha! 

I also carried two dog treats with me when I ran the Chicago Marathon last year.  The girls are such a part of my daily workouts, and my heart, I cannot not carry one of their most favorite items.  Some people carry good luck charms from their loved ones.  Me, I carry dog treats! 

After heading back towards the hotel for a much-anticipated shower after the race, my friend and I met another runner walking with his dog.  After exchanging dialogue about the race experience, I asked if I could share one of the girl’s treats with his best pawed friend.  I was able to offer this runner laughter, too, when he realized I had just run 26.2 miles carrying dog treats!

I didn’t offer dog treats to any bears while traversing the Olympic National Park, though my hiking mates and I did experience five bear encounters during our adventure.    Each of the bears were gathering.   Berries.   For their upcoming hibernations.  

And of course, me being me, I was also listening to the bears’ messages.   Gather to share. 

I’ve thought a lot about their messages since they graced my path nearly three months ago. 

When I share something I’ve gathered with another from what I’ve read or heard.  When the inner whisper communicates, they may find the words helpful or inspirational.    

When I put ingredients on my grocery list with a plan to bake something homemade for a friend or for family.   Gathering.   To share.    Not just what I intend to be a tasty treat or meal.   Gathering to share from the heart in the way my grandma communicated love through the food she baked for others. 

When I share from a chapter of my story that once held emotional pain or grief along with how I’ve stepped through a healing journey.  Brene Brown’s wisdom regarding vulnerability holds incredible truth.  Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity.  It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. 

Gather.   Like the bears were.  Fully present with the berry bushes, guiding us with their presence to be fully present, too, as we paused, watched, and waited for them to saunter off into the distance so that we could continue on the trail.  For stories we could share of being in their presence, bearing witness in their natural habitat in which we were guests honoring their space and them for who they are.  

Gather, in the words of one dear soul who said the following recently, as students of listening.    Gather space to listen with such things as empathy, compassion, gratitude, kindness, non-judgement, respect, humility, and curiosity.  

The Heart Math institute has conducted research that says we can feel another’s heart up to fifteen feet away.   Gather [in our hearts] to share from our listening such things as empathy, compassion, gratitude, kindness, non-judgement, respect, humility, and curiosity. 

I think of the bears when I find myself ruminating on a situation in which I am starting to pick up the oars to paddle upstream, metaphorically speaking.   In the moment I am about to put the oars into the water to paddle against the currents of trust and faith’s downstream flows, one of nature’s animals will cross my path speaking.  Flow with life, follow the rhythm of your own heartbeat, gentle grace, playfulness is important, follow your true north to name a few of the messages shared for my gathering.  

Gather to share the experiences in which the Universe is messaging hope, faith, and love are always within reach.   Like the wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh, the present moment is the only place where life exists.

Lately I’ve been focused on words I read long ago to this effect.   It’s not how often we meet each other; it is how often we reach each other.   How often we don’t simply spend time together, but fully see and hear the other person we are interacting with. 

How often we can feel that a meaningful connection has occurred.  That we have just shared ourselves in a way that the other person will gladly gather what we have offered, and want to hold onto it, to treasure it, to keep it in safekeep. 

The life story writer in me holds tight to the bear wisdom as I think about the power of narratives, of gathering to share stories for inspiration, for wisdom, for legacy.    

I think about the berries the bears gathered.   We sampled from bushes on our hike.   Some were sweet.  Others not so much.  

The berries a life-force for the bears.   Words for humans a life-giving power and how they are gathered and shared greatly influences, transforms, alters, shifts, revolutionizes, evolutionizes, carries forward, leads upward, and cracks open.   

And how words are gathered and shared can greatly influence, transform, alter, shift, revolutionize, evolutionize, carry backwards, lead downward, and crack apart. 

I think of the bears gathering for their hibernation, for sharing within their own internal systems as they lay in the dark caves through winter’s dormancy.   What words do I gather in my internal systems to fuel me when winter seasons arrive on life’s journey?  What am I sharing to my mind, heart, and body in my gathering? 

Dear bears, thank you, and may you have a most restful sleep.  Rest assured, your messages of gather and share were fully received.   

Now is where love breathes.  – Rumi

The gentle grace of deer has been with me for many years now.   I anticipate deer have been with me all my life; my awareness of them as animal messengers for me since 2011 when a herd crossed the trail in front of me as I prepared to begin my first training run.   I stood at the start of the trail, less than enthused but committed to two friends in my yes to do a Triathlon together. 

The deer knew better than I did that my soul was also standing there committed.   My soul had chosen this lifetime to experience all that life would bring to me, so that I could continually discern, decide, and dance between the tugs and pulls of life’s teachings.   To choose which wolf I feed. 

Perhaps you sometimes feel the way I do.   Goodness, it can be so very hard learning from the designs this lifetime holds!  

I have noticed my Deer spirit animals really rallying around me for several months now.  To the point I find their beds in our yard from having slept near our home for the night.   Deer are hearing my heart when its rhythmic beat is labored, when my being is holding the weight of others’ grief and sorrow.   In the words of Pema Chodron I heard recently, compassion hurts.  To be compassionate, we imagine what it is to be in someone else’s shoes.  For many, the current steps are excruciatingly painful. 

When I most need to remember what my soul knows of the power of energy, our attention, and our intentions, Deer appear whispering gently be in the now.  Look.  Listen.  Receive.  

 I will then pause to notice Ginger sitting by my side full of her unconditional listening and love.  Or I will burst out laughing at something silly, joyful Kutana is doing.  I will think of someone dear in my life and feel such deep gratitude that they are a part of my life.  I will hear a bird sing.  I will notice the leaves reflecting off the water.  I will stand in now and feel my heart expand with love. 

And the grace of wisdom will whisper this is life. 

I will remember the Divine words of a friend thirty years ago when my compassionate heart hurt from hearing a tragic story when he said everything happens for a reason Christine…if you drive slower in icy conditions…if you tell your loved ones you love them every time you leave home…you will have made it matter that it happened.

The grace of wisdom further whispers this is a beautiful life.  Be gentle with its hardness.  Life will thrive with the grace of hope, faith, and love. 

I remember listening to a Sounds True podcast “Getting Off the Crazy Train: Living a Soul-Directed Life.  https://resources.soundstrue.com/podcast/getting-off-the-crazy-train-living-a-soul-directed-life/   Tami Simon was interviewing Cheryl Richardson.    Cheryl Richardson was sharing about a routine she has in which she will look at her calendar of appointments and commitments for the week or month ahead and ask herself if she learned her life was ending a week from now, would she want to have spent it doing all the things are on her calendar?  Her way of checking in on her presence with life.  

I remember listening, and thinking thank goodness I am not the only one to pause and check in with myself if my life came to a close tomorrow.    I have done it for years, as my awareness increased at the fragility of life and how it is a sudden moment in which life becomes before and no longer the same.   The Deer are guiding what feels like much more awareness of sudden moments as more and more cracks appear on the globe of our planet.    

Stand gently in witness of the volcanic eruptions, step in grace with the cracking open for new beginnings.   As a dear soul said to you recently, be a “student of listening”.

A few weeks ago, the girls and I came home from a morning run and as we neared the entrance to our home, both girls shifted into an excitable curious huntress mode.   I looked just in time to see both girls centimeters away from this dear feathered friend.   Talk about sudden moments and heart palpitations!  

Thankfully Ginger listens instantly and Kutana knows her hunting command well as my voice No bird!  No bird! fueled my legs responding to my racing heart to quickly get to this little one before the girls sent it into cardiac arrest.  

I frequently think of the picture of this little one in my hand, resting against my chest, when my heart is filled with compassion for the sudden moments that have forever changed lives of people I hold dear, of people who are puzzle pieces that complete the picture of my life.   People I care about who knew grief was coming from a loved one’s failing health, who are now trying to catch their breath again.   People I care about who didn’t know grief and trauma were coming and are trying to catch their breath again.   People who have experienced grief and trauma and are working on how to breathe in new ways.  

Gently hold, gently be with.  Gently Be.   Let grace guide the now.   Let now gracefully guide uncertainty.   

When, as much as we wish that we had a magic wand to make things different, better, all a bad dream, sometimes the very best we can do is

be gentle with what life brings.