Obstacles

Obstacles can become gateways leading to new beginnings...I know this as a Zen axiom. I know it as a guide. So often, in the past, I would lose my patience, and my guide, with obstacles, with things I could not do, or understand, and then try and wait for "someone else" to take care of whatever was blocking my particular road. I am trying hard to break this pattern.

It's Summer for certain, and it's a jungle here needing mowing, cutting, planting, and watering. Much to do by myself, much to learn. Hard not to despair sometimes when I fall short of the task, or make mistakes...well, that's just being human, as Mom reminds me. (She escaped the fires in Show Low, AZ, playing cards with her friends right up to the moment they made those ladies get out of town! She is somethin'!) When your courage fails you and when it feels as though it were all caving in around you, it's so important to breathe through the panic and count your blessings...to remember clearly all the good things that are happening all the while. And so, I count my blessings...

I can sing. I am able to do what I do well and to make a living doing what I love. And, in doing this, I make a small but significant difference in this world. I know this only because people tell me so, they give it back. And so the blessing I've been given blesses me.

I am loved. Amazing how the heart has a mind of its own. It seems we humans really are inclined towards love -- for even if the heart breaks open and we think about possibly entering seclusion and never loving again, the poor human heart needs love so. And so when love comes knocking on the door of the heart, we must answer...we must -- all of us-- for love is what we are here for. And if we ever get it right, songwriters such as I will be out of work. I work every day on being the most loving person I can be. I do not do it alone. I have a partner now who shares this endeavor,hand-in-hand, and who loves me so thoroughly that I am able to grow beyond my old patterns, and begin to become a better human being. I am blessed.

I am well. I am learning to accept this 55-year-old body and to be grateful it all still works fairly well. Stiffness, wrinkles, the ever-present "oof" which accompanies the tying of one's shoes -- all that, but still, so young-at-heart, still eager to learn and do things..."and miles to go before I sleep..."

So, every day is a new beginning, a chance to break old outmoded habits...I am learning things profound, learning to face obstacles, to see them as gateways, and to walk through them, with truth as my companion, never forgetting to look up and ask for Help. I am blessed.