Aligning with Grace

"Cooperation is key for you at the moment. Let go of ego and work it out." ~ Pelican I walk the shoreline of the ocean, as often as three times a day. Sometimes more, hungrily trying to make up for my many years of absence. With each step I bathe and ground my feet in the healing salt waters. Every time I visit, I receive gifts from the sea - of insight. Of wisdom. And actual physical ones as well. Sometimes I receive shells. Yesterday an un usual rainbow colored one appeared at my feet on a long walk. Yesterday I also received a pelican feather. Not once - but twice! Mind you, I rarely receive feathers, but recently two came to me - one from a cardinal and another from a vulture. I quickly looked up their meaning as totem animals. I have been treated to a convocation of pelicans, gathering daily in the same general vicinity, so yesterday I looked up the significance of pelicans. Here are some of the insights I come across from several sources: If Pelican...

"You cannot step into the same river twice..." This quote, attributed to Heraclitus, arises in my heart. I stare in awe, at the broad expanse of the ocean in front of me, having risen to meet a new dawning and say to myself -  "You cannot step into the same ocean thrice..." You cannot step into the same day. You cannot hold on to anything - therefore, you cannot hold on to any of your yesterdays - or the days that are yet to unfold.  You cannot hold on to what was - or what will be. You cannot hold on to love - or to your relationships - you cannot hold on to your past - or to any part of your life. But somehow, we manage to hold on to the things that take away from our magnificence and that make us small - like fear and resentment. And attachment. We will somehow allow those things to consume us, sometimes for a lifetime - keeping us apart from others, and impeding our growth and development. But these things that we latch on to, do not define us....

I am halfway through an incredible journey, of visiting life long friends and family, and making many connections. Many moving pieces came together easily and quickly. A dear one said to me recently, that this trip would be a time of great significance. She was right... I am so happy to spend days walking the beach, grounding my feet in sand and salt water. It has been years since I've had that opportunity, and this time I will spend time on three beaches and two coasts. A few days ago, as I walked along the shore and looked at the crashing waves, waiting for the sun to peak through clouds every now and then in the early morning, I was struck by the luminosity and the clarity of the waves - how very silvery and radiant the water looked, how I seemed to be able to capture every little detail in the dancing foam. Mind you, I cannot see very well. And yet, in these moments, I was so present, I was able to "see" with a different sight - that went beyond the physical...

This month is just about over, and I can't for the life of me, tell you where it went! I had a lot of goals and projects, and while I took care of some minor ones, it seems I hardly made a dent on my list. Perhaps it is the heaviness that seems to permeate so much on the planet right now - war in several places, including the conflict between Israel and Gaza, which I visited, just over 7 months ago. Even then, I was very much struck by how two people co-existed in the same, very small area - and were literally invisible to one another. The tension was palpable. I wanted to take them both by hand - the Jew and the Muslim - and say to them: "Here, look at each other! You share the same land and ancestry! You are children descended from the same man - Abraham!" There is also the matter of the planes recently shot down from the sky, particularly the one over the Ukraine, so many innocent lives needlessly taken. It just does not seem to be to me the kind of summer I had ...