I was up in the early morning headed for the airport at the start of a trip to the east coast. A cool summer night, a quarter moon rising, and my son excited about starting his new adventure in college.
Riding the shuttle on the first leg of a typical airline trip, which takes twelve hours to complete a four hour flight, I notice that part of me is worrying. Not about the next step in the process, check in; but about returning the rental car on the return trip five days later.
This part of my mind wants to review the whole trip over and over, trying to make sure that it will all go as planned. I have to laugh. Calling myself back to present time, the sweet, cool, night on the Colorado plains, I ask simply, “Is this step going well? Yes. Is there anything I need to prepare for the next one? No.
OK, let’s relax, trust myself and spirit.
A great opportunity to practice being present, knowing what the long range plan is, but allowing it to unfold one step at a time. This let events flow, and allowed me to feel good about the trip all the way until I got home again. Even in the traffic jams, both on the roads and at the airport.
Arriving home on another wonderful Colorado night, I find my grass is green and growing. It was never about me doing it all. The rains two weeks ago and cooler days have changed a yellow yard into green that needs to be mowed again. All while I was off doing other things. I am not alone.
Ahh, but now I am home. There is a new space in my life. I can consider what I want to fill it with. I find that it is a good step to know the plan and allow myself to trust it, but the mind really rebels when there is “no plan”. Can I relax and trust the next step when I’m not sure what that is? Can I still remember that spirit has my back, that the tapestry of life has many weavers, seen and unseen?
Same lesson, next octave.
My mind doesn’t have to fill this new space months and years ahead. In fact, I know I will have a great deal of help creatively filling it, especially if I am open to it being there. When I can relax my being, show up, be present, be appreciative and joyful, give my fears space, but let them go, then the creativity of spirit, my higher self and all the other levels, has space to gift me.
If I am too busy worrying about next month or next year, how can I notice what the next step is that’s appearing right in front of me? or arising from inside me? Have patience and it will become clear. Allow the space to be present and open so that it may fill creatively. Let go of the “responsibility” to do it all, which is overwhelming. Settle into that deep place of connection and knowing, not of what next week brings, but of spirit and self, of trust and faith, of what is already present right here, today. Then next week will begin to spin itself.
(© 8/2008)
