Meandering Toward True Size

       Last Monday, instead of writing a Weekly Wisdom, I spent the day in workshop with Bill O'Hanlon, who's been mentoring and inspiring therapists and writers for some 30 years and who's published some 30 books.  He's a model of fearlessness for me – a man who decides to do something, then does it – apparently without a lot of the angst I typically experience between thinking and doing.

       I jumped at the chance to drive him back to the airport. The trip offered a lovely time to catch up with Bill - and was itself a meander.  I quickly missed a turn, and we wandered a bit before reorienting.  After a quick hug goodbye, I was back in the car headed home when I discovered a gold star sitting on the passenger seat where he'd been seated.  I assumed he left it there for me, as an encouragement.  (He had given a couple people stars during the workshop.)  Or it could have fallen out of his pocket, left there by a loving universe.  Either way, it was a blessing.

       The next morning dawned gorgeously.  After my usual run on the trail by the river, I decided to do some QiGong on the river-stone beach by water's edge, where I sometimes do ceremony with the Thursday night group.  The stones and I were soaking in the sunshine, as I moved my hands in an exercise called "The Movement of Yin and Yang".  For several minutes during that movement, I felt a phantom watch on my left wrist, where I no longer wear a watch.

       "What's this?" I wondered. 

       "It's time," came an answer.  Time, I realized, to let go of old containment, of living small – much smaller than I am.

       A couple days ago, Joanie and I closed on a new house – one more spacious than my "bachelor" home (now grounded, by the way), which we'd been sharing since she sold her place a couple-three months ago.  I've had a jitter or two about the move, which somehow is eased by today's soreness after our first marathon day of emptying one house into another.

       All this makes me think of lobsters. 

       It must be very frightening for lobsters to shed their old shells, when they've outgrown them.  There's that nakedness between shells, when they're totally vulnerable.  And yet, when it's time, the discomfort of living in a shell too small outweighs the danger of growing into the unknown.

       It's time.