Dear Reader,
We have enjoyed some beautiful weather over the past few weeks here in Maine, and I have been loving it! One day last week, around twilight, I was driving on a back road with the car window down, letting in the fresh evening air. I had one hand on the steering wheel and my other arm was resting on the window sill. For a few moments, I let my arm and hand dangle down next to the side of the car as I drove, so that the back of my hand faced the direction I was driving.
As a small breeze touched the back of my hand, I felt all the nerve endings in my chest and belly soften and release, as if letting go of something. Maybe it was grief, or impatience, or frustration; I don’t know. And it really doesn’t matter. The important point is that I was carrying something I didn’t recognize, and by opening to a tiny breeze, it was released. The feeling was so intense that I nearly wept. I arrived home a little lighter and more open, a little more ready to engage with my life.
If you can open to the gifts offered in the smallest moment, perhaps even while driving your car (I could do a whole post about driving as a spiritual practice,) you will be that much more able to open to and embrace bigger change. If you struggle to open to those moments, or miss them altogether, that’s useful information for you to have.
The bottom line: allow in those gentle reminders of the present moment, whether they come from nature or somewhere else. Open to them, allow them to change you, and here’s another important part: embrace that change. Don’t just ignore the experiences. Acknowledge them, feel gratitude for them, and know that you have changed forever by opening to them. If a letting go is called for, let go. Then move on.
As we move into a long Labor Day weekend, at least for many of my readers here in the States, I wish for you the opportunity, whether you create it or it takes you by surprise, to be smitten by at least one moment of really opening to change. It might come from something as small as a breeze on the back of your hand. In fact, if you have an experience over the weekend you’d like to share, write me here on the blog next week; I’d love to hear about it!
I honor your loving heart,
John
John, your description of your experience is so beautiful. I love how you paint the picture to share it with us. Isn’t it amazing how simply being present with all the sensations, all the subtle nuances opens us? We then are open to receive and /or let go in that experience whether it is release or spontaneous joy. That is what I call truly living. Thank you for being so alive, my friend.
And thank you, my friend! I love your description in your comment of receiving and letting go.