The new family moves in: gently and quietly without disturbing the magical energy of this sacred place. I am filled with gratitude for all the miracles large and small!
This has been a month of such extraordinary miracles both large and small! I am filled with such boundless gratitude for the endless ways in which I feel watched over, protected and blessed by Spirit/the Grandmothers. My life feels so incredibly filled with such amazing and unpredictable magic!
I spent all of June continuing to do landscaping projects that deepened my already profound connection to this wonderful Eden in which I live. It seemed the best way that I could prepare my being for the unknowable journey ahead. The best way to stay in just-this-moment as I faced the imminent arrival of the family with whom I would soon be sharing this paradise. The best way not to tell myself upsetting stories of what it might be like to have other renters coming onto this property on which I’ve lived essentially alone for eleven and a half years. The best way to hold my self grounded through the periodic waves of grief, the sense of impending (though indefinable) loss, the tantrums about having to face change.
By hand, I spread some 70 bags of shredded bark and 6 cubic yards of locally recycled wood chips on all the dusty pathways and open spaces around my little cottage and tiny gardens. Days and days were given over to shoveling, filling and carrying buckets of chips, hauling bags of bark and endless raking. Elbow deep in soil mixing, I potted many new plants for around the beautiful privacy fence I’d built by myself. These were days of moving meditation. The intense, on-going physical labors were acts of hope and prayer.
As I worked, I stayed with not-knowing whether I would be able to tolerate the enormous and unfathomable changes that seemed about to unfold. Would I get to enjoy the beauty I was creating? Or, was this all meant to be my parting gift to this precious land that I might now find I would have to leave?
All the while I was at work, the new family was very slowly, very gently and very quietly moving into the big house. For over two weeks, in what certainly looked like familiar “baby-steps,” they came every evening bringing small carloads of boxes. They seemed, like elves, to slip quietly in and out without disturbing the abiding peace of this place.
Allison (not her real name) called to let me know when they were about to come over with their uhaul truck. They’d scheduled that for the very end of my workday! Even those two truckloads came softly into the field. Several pick-up loads of plants and other things were ferried in, each time with such quiet energy I was totally amazed. If I hadn’t seen the trucks and people I wouldn’t have known they were here!
I went to bed quite early on the last Thursday in June, exhausted from the final bits of completion-tasks on all my outdoor projects. My back was a little sore so I actually slept in the house rather than in the farther-away-from-the-driveway tent. When I woke Friday morning, I was absolutely astonished to see both of the new peoples’ cars in the driveway. I had been totally unaware that they had spent their first night here. The special, wondrous and tranquil energy that surrounds this land had not been altered in the slightest! And, so it has continued over these past two weeks of their being fully here! Even as this week there were, for the first time, two of us having clients coming onto the property.
The reality of the impact of their presence is beyond my wildest hopes or dreams of the possible. They have incorporated themselves seamlessly into the magical energy fabric of this miraculous space. Their presence, except for their cars in the driveway is all but invisible to me. I feel dazed, dazzled by the incredible wonder of it all, intoxicated with such joy and relief. The very few interactions we’ve had have been sweet, simple and easy. Our boundaries feel similarly well defined. Our ways of being in this field are more alike then one would have thought possible. These gentle, seemingly kindred souls feel to be a magnificent gift from Spirit.
So! What could have become an overwhelming, devastating upheaval in my life has turned into a quite gentle opportunity to explore how I keep my boundaries and safety in the face of sharing this sacred space. I give thanks for the prayers of all my friends and all the web site readers who’ve followed the unfolding. I give thanks to Spirit/the Grandmothers: they have made their presence and protection clear yet again in my life. I give thanks to myself for all the good work I’ve done in this process: I am so grateful that I was able to help myself not to spin awful stories as I waited. So grateful that I was able to help myself stay in the moment, available to what was actually coming to be instead of spending energy exploring catastrophic worse case scenarios. So grateful that I could make safe space for me to feel my way through the waves of intense grief, the tantrums.
And, I give thanks for the extraordinary series of small miracles that unfolded beginning very early Saturday morning in that first week of my “new life” here. I was back to sleeping in my tent. At 4:30 AM, as usual, Ms. Pretty began pulling my hair with her claw to wake me up and get me to go with her into the house to fill her wet food bowl. While she was breakfasting I, as usual, leaned out the door to retrieve and fill her outside water bowl. Six feet from my door was a young coyote walking through the driveway. She stopped, as startled by me as I was by her. I said “Good morning, Sweetie!” She cocked her head, making eye contact with me for a moment before she continued trotting off on her way. Such a precious blessing from Spirit!
After going back to sleep for a few hours, I lay floating in my hot tub doing my morning Reiki. For no particular reason, I opened my eyes. Just at that moment, a radiant yellow Oriole flew across my field of view–something that happens here only a handful of times in a year. Another special blessing–like a loving wink from Spirit!
Some hours later, while sitting at my desk doing paperwork, I looked up and out my window as I stretched and rolled my neck. Just at that very moment a sleek, shiny cream-ringed black king snake was disappearing its last few inches over the rock border and into the fern garden just outside my window. Again, I felt that breath-stopping awe that comes with such a blessing/gift from Spirit.
Quite late that evening, after hours of timelessly puttering about, I finally managed to gather enough “escape velocity” to set out from the cottage for a nighttime meander to one of the nearby creeks. There are three packs of coyotes that wander the groves at this end of the valley. Often when I walk, I’ll hear one or two of the packs raise up a howling and yipping among themselves. Sometimes it seems as though they’re sharing jokes and hysterical laughter, one pack to the other. Maybe twice or three times a year all three packs, from their several locations in this eastern part of the valley, seem to bounce their exuberance off each other filling the night with their boisterous hilarity. Just a very short way into my walk, to my utter delight and laughing astonishment, all three began carrying on with each other. Their calls and responses triangulated the warm night with rollicking coyote conversation. Again, I was filled with that chest-bursting ecstatic sense of Spirit’s presence and blessing!
On the homeward leg of my trek, I stopped to bend and stretch my back. At the very moment I raised up to stretch backward, eyes to the skies, a shooting star streaked across a full quarter of the dome of the sky! I erupted with such a gleeful cheer! Yes! Spirit was being so particularly, visibly present repeatedly bringing me such amazing gifts and blessing all through this extraordinary day. My eyes and heart filled with tears of gratitude.
In all these little miracles throughout the day, it felt as if the Grandmothers/Spirit were affirming their presence in every moment of my existence. And, too, it felt as though in calling my attention to these wondrous gifts, they were offering me a celebration, an acknowledgment of my work in holding myself so safely and openly through this incredibly big passage of change.
I never cease to be completely astounded and profoundly moved in moments like these: that I should be called to raise or open my eyes, to turn my head, to be out walking–all at just exactly the particular instant that it becomes possible to experience the magical happening! So many small miracles in an ordinary day.
Originally published July 2002
