Lesson 3: Be vulnerable

The third and final lesson I have to master in order to open my heart, find intimacy, and create connection is: be vulnerable.  However, I want to make it clear that I don't think there is an order to the three lessons.  I suspect that they are interrelated, and mastery of one will lead to mastery of all.  Or, maybe mastery of all will require mastery of only one...but, which one?

• Make time to do the things you love and love what you do
• This is the day the Lord hath made; rejoice and be glad in it.
• Be vulnerable

I've played with these three a bit over the three weeks since settling on them as my lessons for the year.  It doesn't really matter which I start with, I believe any one of them can and will lead to the others.  For example, if I am doing things I love and loving what I do, I will rejoice and be glad.  If I am conscious that God has made the day, and I am joyful, I am more likely to make time for the things I love.  I would feel safe and warm, so I'd be more willing to be vulnerable.

By contrast, if I am willing to be vulnerable, I'll risk confronting things, people, and circumstances in my life that keep me from doing the things I love.  Then I will be joyful.

Finally, if I make time for the things I love and love what I do, the bubble of God's love will provide the security to be vulnerable. I will most certainly be grateful and joyful.

So, slow down, Kay.  Just be. Do what you love. Rejoice. Be vulnerable.

I am taking baby steps.  I left work at 5 p.m. tonight even though my colleague who usually works late, and I choose to let me feel guilty, really wanted to talk about a project.  I felt quite vulnerable making the choice, but I have to say that the building didn't quake because I left on time. She didn't protest even a whimper.  I scheduled time tomorrow evening to talk with her, an evening when I have an extra hour to kill between work and a dance class.  I will love working with her; she's great.  I will love the dance class.

I had an extra two hours.  I've done several things this evening that I at least enjoy, even if they aren't quite in the "love to do" category.  I had leftovers from a meal out, but I took time to artfully arrange them on the plate and make a special labor-intensive salad.  That I loved doing. 

I've had some paperwork to complete a certification I started about six weeks ago.  I've been putting off doing it. I just didn't think I could add one more thing to my plate. When I emailed the instructor that I needed to put it off for a while (being vulnerable,) she was relieved because she is over-taxed. 

I really wonder how many times when I've pushed myself to near-exhaustion that I've pushed others as well.  At the very least, my pushing back probably wouldn't have been a concern.

Even if any of the lessons will lead to the other two, I have a hunch that "be vulnerable" may actually be the easiest to bring to consciousness.  I am not sure why, but I think that in any given situation, if I ask myself, "What will make me the most vulnerable?" that I will not fail--will not fail to be human.  I will finally feel secure in abandoning superwoman.  Sigh.  What a relief just to say that!

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am not sure that I've ever totally mastered one of my lessons during a single year.  I have always made progress.  The way it has usually happened has been that sometime down the line, a year, two years, or five years, I will suddenly realize that I am doing the very thing that I'd committed to mastering.  Once we set an intention, we unleash a powerful force to support our desires.  Then acting in accordance with that choice incrementally carries us toward that intention.

I am unequivocal about choosing to open my heart, find intimacy, and create connection.  I will master these lessons--one day at a time.

Lesson 2 -- This is the Day the Lord Hath Made

The second spiritual lesson that I am undertaking for the year ahead as a result of my retreat in Greece is to celebrate each and every day in its perfection.  Those who read "Coveting" (10/2/14) will recall that I was deeply moved by the concept that any time we wish for anything in our lives to be different than what it is, we are "coveting." We miss the value of what is because we are caught up in what it might be. 

During my reflective time I pondered, how would I word an intention for growth that meant "loving what is."  Each time I would think about it, a single scripture would immediately come to me:

"This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24

If I was not going to wish my life to be different than the gift God had given me, that scripture captured what I needed to do.  I must be aware that God had made this particular day expressly and intentionally for me.  This day is God's gift to me, whatever it is.  My job is to rejoice and be glad about the gift, not to complain about what God had chosen not to give me in this day.

I will be the very first to say, this is a very difficult lesson.  First, I have to keep myself conscious each and every day that this day is God's gift to me.  That is the really hard part.  When I remember that the day is God's gift, I find that being intentional about rejoicing in what is happening is easier.  That old thing about being conscious is the hard part. 

You will recall that my intention for the year ahead is to open my heart, find intimacy, and create connection.  I cannot do any of those without being conscious.  Even more important though is that if I am wishing to be somewhere else having some other kind of experience, I will be guarded and defensive.  If I am guarded, how will I ever open my heart, and without an open heart, I am hopeless for find intimacy or create connection. 

Today celebrating the day God had made for me was easy.  It was the most perfect blue sky, sunny autumn day imaginable.  I had almost nothing I had to do.  I just completely enjoyed everything I did: you might say I was rejoicing and being glad.  The challenge will come tomorrow when I am thrust back into my work environment.  This is my spiritual lesson, and it will be work.  And, I will rejoice and be glad about learning this important lesson.

The Organizing Principle

A week ago, after writing my last post about loving what you do and doing what you love (October 13,) I had an interesting night.  I kept waking up for a few seconds all night, but it wasn't a fitful sleep.  I slept well, but just woke up a number of times. 

Each time I awakened I would hear the words "the organizing principle."  That's just how long I was awake--just long enough to hear "the organizing principle." I say I heard the words, but I almost have the sense that there was a flash of light, and I'd also see the words.  But only for a split second. Then, back to sleep.

When I woke up there was a stunned silence inside me. I just lay there, mulling over this message that kept washing over me in waves.  While I wasn't sure exactly what it meant, I knew it was important.  What did it mean?  Somehow I felt like it related to love and the post I'd written, but I didn't know what.

The next night "the organizing principle" showed up again.  Not as often, but at least twice.  The next night...again.  What did this mean?

My meditations produced nothing.  "The organizing principle."  I looked it up in Wikipedia: "Having an organizing principle might help one simplify and get a handle on a particularly complicated domain. On the other hand, it might create a deceptive prism that colors one's judgment."  I am not sure what that means. 

Then yesterday, again just as I awakened and as gentle as a snowflake on a kitten's nose, it came to me.  We each have a view of the world, and our expectations, some might say intentions, create that reality.  If I expect threats, that is what I will find.  If I expect everything to be a gift, I will find gifts everywhere in my life.  If I expect to love everything I do, and do everything I love, that too is what will happen. 

I believe my message was telling me that loving what I do and doing what I love should be the organizing principle in my life...at least an organizing principle. (I don't know if we get more than one.)  If life is the "complicated domain," then even that Wikipedia definition might make sense: loving what I do and doing what I love certainly simplifies the complicated domain of life.  And it applies to everything in life.

I get it!

Being awake enough to stay alert to loving what I do will be my biggest challenge, but for now it is critically important to understand that the bright light of love at the center of my life will simplify every aspect of life.

Do What You Love, and Love What You Do

In my "Layers of Learning" post (October 9,) I shared that my year-end/year-beginning reflective time this year had not led to any major Aha! moments, but instead kept presenting lessons that I have already been working on for years, only in different forms.  Every time I would bump into a lesson and examine it, I would almost always see familiarity.  "Oh, that again!"  This week I'd like to explore the three big lessons that I will continue to focus on this year. 

"Do What You Love, and Love What You Do" may actually be two, but they seem to fit together so I am going to consider them as one. 

"Do What You Love" has haunted me for some time.  I love writing.  I love dancing.  Right after those two come cooking tasty and healthy food and watching movies.  I am actually much better about the cooking and watching movies than my core loves of writing and dancing.  Perhaps that is because I need to eat every day, and I want to eat healthfully.  In a lot of ways, I've let cooking become a survival activity rather than a passion.

The difference in how I approach what I love ties to the "Love What You Do" part of the lesson.  Over the weekend, I watched a movie (twice) about a chef who really was passionate about his cooking.  In the movie, we see him growing and harvesting his own vegetables and herbs and deriving great pleasure in "listening to his heart" as he cooked.  At one point, viewers see him mentoring an aspiring chef by blind-folding her so that she will learn to listen to her inner knowing about food.

Too often, my cooking has fallen into an auto-pilot activity rather than being something I approach with the passion of the movie chef.  It wasn't always so.  There was a time when I approached cooking as a dance, engaging with the food I was preparing with great joy.  I still enjoy going to the Farmers' Market around the corner on Saturday morning, but rarely do I stop and drink in the sights and smells and let my imagination run wild the way I used to do.  I recall a time when I would walk out on my deck with a bowl and grab hands-full of fresh herbs, which I'd use to make up recipes. 

It's been way too long since I had a relationship with the food I prepare.  I blame time, but when I am honest with myself, I know that it doesn't take appreciatively longer time to engage and really experience the love of what I am doing than it does to do the same activity mindlessly.  The difference isn't time.  The difference is consciousness and intention.   I bring the intention to be really awake to my passion for the activity, and then I am conscious of doing so.

What else is true is that when I bring that intention and consciousness to my efforts in the kitchen, my whole being changes.  I am physically relaxed.  I am spiritually engaged.  I am joyful. I am creative. My activities are easy, effortless, and enjoyable--in a "flow" state when I lose track of time and everything else.  When I consume the products of effortless labor, I truly en-joy them...I am in joy with what I eat.  Until I face the dirty pots and pans, all lines are blurred into a single oneness of being.  (Even clean-up is less onerous when I allow myself to flow to it.)

Although I watch a lot of movies, the same thing might be said of how I experience them any more.  More often than not, the movie comes at the end of a very long day, and watching a movie is a passive activity to keep my exhausted body awake until a respectable hour for an adult to go to sleep.  I don't really engage with the movie most of the time.

Saturday I joined in a ritual movie event with two friends who also love movies.  Every couple of months, the screenwriter in our trio picks two classic films for us to watch.  In the middle, we usually take a walk and cook/eat together.  I was conscious this time about how different it is when I participate in these conscious-viewing events than the passive consuming, which has become my norm.  As with cooking, I will bring more attention and intention to my passion for movies in the future.  I will not only do what I love, but I will consciously bring love to the movies I watch.

I hesitate to call the other two things that I love "activities." Each is at the core of my being.  I've had the conversation with people in the dance community before that there are "dancers," and there are "people who dance."  "People who dance" can take it or leave it.  They could as easily go bowling or play tennis if they were in a relationship with someone who enjoys those activities. 

"Dancers," by contrast, are one with dance. They could more easily give up breathing than dance.  Dancing almost instantly takes them into a "flow" state where the dimensions of time and space drop away.  I've had evenings when I had a good partner(s), good music, and a good floor, when the time for the "last waltz" was announced, and I felt as if I'd just arrived.  I had totally lost track of time.  Once I danced for seven hours straight, and it felt like a flash.

There are often moments of "other worldliness" to a single dance, too, when the partners will just look at each other at the end of the dance because they know something magical just happened. (This is not a romantic thing; it is a dance thing.  I really don't know how else to describe it.)

Similarly with writing: it is who I am. I carry a knot on the second finger of my right hand from writing since I could hold a pencil. When I sit and get in the flow, it just comes.  I lose track of time and bodily needs, often going hours without food, water, or elimination.  I just don't notice.  I wrote The Game Called Life in five days, one day writing 32 pages.  I really don't know how I did it.  As with the "other worldliness" of the magical dance, I always feel like I am one with some divine force within me when I write. 

There are excuses why I have not been writing and dancing much recently.  I could blame the long hours at work, but that is getting lame. I know that I've been unconsciously choosing work over my passions.  My colleagues with families leave work earlier to be with what they love, but until now, I've not made it my intention to put what I love first.  I have other excuses, too, but they all boil down to being conscious of my intentions and then acting on them to assure that I do what I love.

A third dimension of loving what I do and doing what I love looms for me.  It involves the actual work I do.  Organization development is a wide field.  Some parts of it I really love.  Others, not so much. Some parts of the profession that I used to really love have burned me out.  Call it compassion fatigue.  What used to flip my switches now sends me into a semi-fetal position at my desk.

When I had my own business, I made a conscious decision to turn away work that I didn't enjoy.  As an employee consultant, that is a luxury I no longer have.  I do what I am assigned to do. "We all have to do things we don't enjoy," I am told.  I have expressed my desires, but mostly they have been disregarded.  I need to either learn to love the "not-so-much" stuff and do it with love, or I need to find another way to earn a living that allows me to do what I love. Maybe both.

As you can see, the Universe has left me a lot of room to grow myself this year in "Do What You Love, and Love What You Do," and at its essence that lesson is to be intentional and then be conscious of how I live my life.  I should be "in love" all the time. That is how we are intended to be. At that point, I believe I've segued from spiritual lessons to life purpose. 

Friday I Skyped with a friend in Canada, and I said to him that this was going to be a year of intense personal growth.  He asked me how I knew.  "The lessons I am working on this year are at the very core of who I am," I said. 

While I am certain that I will pass through these lessons more times in what I expect to be a long life, I am confident that if I embrace them this year they will profoundly impact the rest of my life, bringing joy and resilience to my days.  I feel like if I can "get it" this time, I may be in a position to really do the transformational work with others that I am here to do.  While humbling, the prospect is exciting...and terrifying.

I recall the words of an executive that I coached 20 years ago.  They resonated such truth that they are always with me.  She said that she had become convinced that when we were on our uniquely defined, divine path that we would simultaneously feel unabated joy and sheer terror.  As I embrace this year's lessons, they foreshadow just such a spot in my life. 

Temporal Free-fall

(This was supposed to be posted on 9/28.  I didn't do something right with the technology and just found it in "drafts" for the blog.  It may add continuity to my posts from Greece.)

Sometime between 8 and 9 last night when I attempted to charge my iPhone, I discovered that I'd left my cable in Athens. I was at 57% charged, which meant that I really needed to conserve energy. This was my only timekeeping device. It was also my writing device, GPS, currency converter, and metric converter.

What would I do?

Immediately, I powered off my device. Then I went into a temporal free-fall. I am still in my first 48 hours in Greece, and I am jet-lagging badly. Despite pharmaceuticals, I was up much of the night. I can't tell you how much because I was powered down.

As the hours passed, I wondered: what time is it? I knew that it was passed the normal Greek coming in time of midnight; I'd heard people coming in earlier. Lights were on and off several times as I would almost read myself to sleep, only to be wide awake when I turned the light off. I had no idea if it was 1 a.m. or 5 a.m.

Then, what difference did it make? I didn't have to be anywhere for over a week.

Breakfast was served in my hotel until 10:30, so I knew it was before 10:30 when I cut into an exquisite Greek peach. I am certain they are the best in the world. I've been salivating for months just thinking about them, and at last I was embracing the succulence of this divine creation.

I climbed 999 (maybe 890, depending on who was telling) steps to the ancient fort. I stopped and chatted in cobbled Greek with an ancient Greek woman, who showed me the way when I became confused. I came back into town and sat on a bench at the water's edge, almost drifting to sleep after my short night. I kept wanting to know if it was "time to eat," rather than whether I was hungry. Several times I caught myself going for the phone to check the time only to stop myself. Each time I was aware that I was not hungry.

When I walked through the narrow streets back to my hotel to dispose of acquisitions, cafes were packed, but I resisted: I was not hungry. Some time later when I was hungry, I meandered back into town. Cafes were now empty.

By this time, I'd borrowed a charger, but I'd also become aware how much of my life has occurred based on the clock, rather than my wisdom, so I have resisted looking.

Like my meditational retreats at home when I tape over the clocks, I am choosing a temporal free-fall. How can I have become so out of touch with myself? I find myself drifting to what I will do tomorrow, only to catch myself with: "Does it matter?" I don't have to be anywhere for over a week.

I resist the American tourista in me to see as much as I can in a few days, and instead, I choose to just be...in this moment. What else is there? After a long lingering lunch, followed by an iced espresso, I will wander back to the waterfront with my book for who knows how long. And, does it really matter?


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Layers of Learning

I can remember having moments when I was teaching at the university when I would find words spilling out of my mouth, and in that very moment I would have the thought, "Oh, that's what that means."  Generally, it would be something I'd thought I'd known and understood for 10, 20, or maybe even 25 years. All of the sudden in that moment in how it came out, I understood what I thought I'd known for a very long time in a different way.  I got it! Differently.

That has happened in books that I've written too.  Almost every time I reread one of my books or even part of one, there will be a moment when I will think to myself (and occasionally even exclaim out loud) "I didn't know I knew that then."  I had known it, but just on a whole different level.

Those who have been reading this blog for a while will know that there are certain themes that repeat themselves.  I believe what is happening is that I discover something different about each spiritual lesson every time I write about it.  In The Game Called Life I say that each of us comes into this life with certain lessons that we have to learn, and learning them is one of three purposes of our lives.  (The other two are performing service and developing/using our gifts and talents.)

I am quite certain that the recurring themes in this blog are lessons that I have to live and learn in this lifetime.  However, I also believe that humankind periodically needs to evolve itself spiritually, and in order to do so, many of us, who are working on the same lesson(s), choose to come and work on the same lessons in parallel.  As we master the nuances of the same lessons, we collectively evolve our world. 

I've been taking an autumn/new year retreat for about 20 years, more or less.  I didn't know when I did it the first time that it would be the first time and not a solitary occurrence, so I can't be more precise. I've been taking several days in silent reflection for longer than that, but I don't really know when I fell into a twice-a-year, fall and spring rhythm. 

For the first few times (10, or maybe 15 or 20) there would be major Aha! moments.  I would really experience on a deep and profound level something about myself that I don't think I'd ever known, or if I did, I certainly hadn't understood the impact.  I like to say, "We can't not know what we know." After those early retreats, my learnings literally shook the foundations of how I lived my life, immediately and profoundly so.

In more recent retreats, the learning has been much like the aspects of Organizational Behavior that I used to share with my university students: something bubbles up that I've known for a long time, but I just understand it in a different way.  "Oh, that again," I will say to myself.  Inevitably, it is one of my enduring lessons, popping up in a new form. 

During my recent pilgrimage in Greece, I kept bumping into the same lessons that I've struggled over and again to integrate into my life. Each time I did, I'd be a bit irritated at myself that I've been working on something years, and even decades, and I still don't have it. I guess that is why they are life lessons and not this week lessons. I don't know why I had to go to Greece to learn them...again. Maybe my lesson is that I can't run away from them.  They also showed up in different forms, but certainly not different enough that I didn't recognize them and feel the sting of on-going learning.

My three intentions for the year ahead are to open my heart, be vulnerable, and create connection.  I am not 100% sure, but I am pretty confident that they are all the same.  Over the next few days, I will share the lessons which I will need to master in order to accomplish those intentions.  There will be similarity to other postings, since these represent layers of learning for me. 

However, if I were to summarize what I think will be different this time, I would say there are two things.  First is that I've been attempting my lessons unilaterally.  That means, I am trying to do it all by myself.  These are all lessons that can only be learned in relationship with others and with particular others.  I can't create connection with someone who isn't equally committed to creating connection.  To attempt to do so is insanity.  What comes to mind is the often quoted definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The second aspect that I believe will be different has to do with complexity.  The lessons are inter-related, and mastering each has impacts on the other two...and others as well.

Connecting Against All Odds

My retreat launched with three intentions. One was to create connection. As my journey drew to within three days of its ending, I regretted the failure to connect as I have in the past when I've traveled, feeling more like I was a target for a sale than someone to know and care about.

Over my several days in Santorini, I kept running into a couple that I would guess were of about my age. We would smile, they in Greek and I in English, but the magic is that we could understand the smiles perfectly. We were connecting.

When we all returned to our lodging last night, they offered to let me go up the stairs first. I motioned for them to go ahead, signaling that my chronically aggravating hip was slowing me down. She said, "knee." We limped up the stairs in file with her husband, pulling up the rear. We were connecting.

I found myself needing a piece of information about the Athens Metro, and none of the English speaking travel folks seemed to know the answer. Emboldened by one word--knee, I wondered if the couple was from Athens and might answer my question. I approached them after our file up the stairs. They didn't know the answer, but first thing this morning they were able to.

Two times we ran into each other in town and "chatted," each time me braving to use a little more Greek and she more English. We road to the port together, and they invited me to coffee while we waited for our ferry. Given the extent of our common language, the hour we had could have been painful. Instead, it was delightful.

For most of the hour, we each stretched ourselves, my Greek more than her English, which was much better. I learned about her profession: she had been a high school science teacher, as had her husband. I learned about her two sons. (Thank goodness for the Greek lessons that taught me about family members.) I shared some about myself. Rarely did we stop. Occasionally, her husband jumped in to bridge our gaps in vocabulary.

As we approached the ferry gate, where we would part, I was pointing to the hawkers of hotel rooms, and saying the Greek word for hotel, and she answered in English "rooms to let," as we both laughed. What a special moment of connection! And it had all begun with her single word--knee--and both of our willingness to be vulnerable.

As I think about it, what more is there to creating connection than looking for a bridge and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. What a nice way to learn that lesson.

As an interesting post-script, Amalia found me on the ferry, and we exchanged Facebook addresses. Through the modern miracle of technology our connection can continue.

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Finding Peace in the Chaos

I pondered what is "guidance," as I arrived on this meditational journey. Was it the inner whisperings I heard from within to go to the Peloponnese? Was it messages from four people immediately before my journey that I should go to Santorini and Crete? Was it something I'd found in a file from my last journey to Greece 16 years earlier, which particularly resonated with me now? The answer I believe is "yes."

I found important lessons in Peloponnese. I learned a lot from listening at other places. Perhaps the most surprising have been the lessons learned on Santorini. When each of the friends who advised I come here did so, I always said I liked to avoid tourist places. The answer was always that I must come here. So I did.

I admit that I was more than a little grouchy upon my arrival yesterday. I don't believe I've ever been to a more touristy spot. There was literally not a thing that spoke of integrity with the local region. Most infuriating was the perfect English all about me. Was I in Greece or a local Greek cafe in Washington?

I was immediately convinced that this most photographed place in Greece had only been accomplished by excellent cropping of photos. That would have been the only way not to include unabashed tourist-mongering.

Yet, I was sure I was sent here. How could any wise guide have brought me to such a place, I had asked in my prayer time this morning?

The answer was immediate and clear: find peace and stillness amidst the chaos. That would be a challenge. But I set about to find it.

My guidebook purported three nearby towns which required enough effort to find that only the most determined of guests attempted. Then over breakfast I found a boat trip to out-islands. I booked for tomorrow.

As I hiked to other towns, I was surprised at how quickly the noise of the maddening crowds quieted. In Imerovigli I found a small chapel where I sat for some time. I had truly found peace in the silence.

Just as I had that thought, I heard the Universe laughing at me with the challenge to find peace IN the chaos not withdrawn from it. I chuckled. There are still more ways to find peace in the chaos. The hardest lay ahead: surrounded by the tourists and the hockers.

What echoes in my mind is the parallel with traditional meditation when the mind spins, and the meditator is challenged to still the mind and find peace. It is the same lesson. I am not sure that one ever ends for most of us.

After a lunch break away from that maddening crowd, I am now ready to move to the next lesson: find peace IN the chaos.







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Coveting

A few days ago, I read Rob Bell's Love Wins.  A number of thoughts have stuck with me, some stingingly so. I find myself having pondered an early discussion on "coveting." A lot.

"Covet" is an interesting word. I think of it as a biblical word, as in "Thou shalt not covet your neighbor's wife," but I suppose it is perfectly good word in other contexts.

Bell's context was about wishing for things we don't have. In this time of reflection, the word sent me to my own heart for self-examination.

The whole thing with time, which has been with me over the last few days, was a good place to start. The tendency to drift to another time or place than the one of the moment is one of coveting of a sorts. I drift to where I am not, instead of savoring where I am. There was reflecting on going to eat when I was not hungry. ("Temporal Free Fall") It is reflected by planning for the future instead of enjoying this moment.

Yesterday I enjoyed about 90 minutes in delightful conversation with a young woman who allowed me to charge my iPhone while she shared a coffee frappé with me. It took me about five minutes to get over my antsyness that I had a bus to catch and should find something to eat first.

An interesting thing has occurred as I've unplugged eating from the clock: I've discovered that being hungry is just being hungry. It passes, and I am in no danger of starving. It just is. I got by the day before on a handful of pistachios until mid-evening, due to lack of opportunity to buy anything I could eat. (I have food allergies that are challenging in Greece.) I am just fine.

So, I reveled in my conversation with the beautiful young woman in her early 30s. She'd worked as a globetrotting anchorwoman for an Athens TV station and was proud of her profession as a journalist. She also seemed delighted with her decision to move to the small city of Napflio, near her father's home village, and run the small hotel where I'd stayed for two nights. I didn't sense that she was coveting anything. She related some freelance jobs she had done, "but the hotel is my occupation now."

Upon thought, this coveting thing seems like the flip side of gratitude, about which I've written a lot over the months. If I am wishing for something different than where I am and what I have, I am coveting. I miss the opportunity to be grateful for what is. Then, I miss everything.

I have spent several hours on a ferry today. I have no idea how many. It is quite cold and windy outside, a harbinger of the coming winter, even in Greece. There aren't enough inside chairs for the throng seeking warmth. Food options have been challenging for my gluten intolerance. And, I've resisted coveting anything different.

I am relishing time to read, a guilty pleasure in recent years with my work load. I did find a chair and have decadently napped a couple of times. This time of reflection is proving to be about my way of being than anything else.

My intentions for this retreat, and for the seeds for which I am planting to grow in the year ahead, are to open my heart, find intimacy, and create connection. The profound question that continues to echo is this: how can I do any of those things if I am wishing to be somewhere else, doing something else, or be with someone else? Acceptance and gratitude for the moment are Ground Zero for open hearts, intimacy, and connection. So I will put this device down and create some now.


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