Every day, in every way that I conduct my moments of my life, I am learning. In this moment, right now, I am already a different person than I was yesterday, different than I was this morning, even from dinnertime two hours ago.
For in each moment………this one…….
and this one…………………
and in this one as well, there is change happening, and lessons being put forth for us.
There are times when we don’t see the lessons in front of us. They may be there, bold as brass, but we don’t yet have the sight to be aware. Maybe for us, it isn’t that time for the lesson. Maybe, it hurts too much to acknowledge the need to learn it. Maybe, just maybe, and probably very likely, fear is at the root of all of those lessons that we don’t believe that we are quite ready for.
For the past several days, I have been acutely aware of big lessons coming my way. There has been a series of circumstances in my life for the last week; none of them tragic or devastating by definition, but possibly life changing in terms of the decisions that I am faced with as a result.
And, at the time of these lessons coming to light initially, I thought that I MIGHT be ready to face them head on, but today, in this moment, I KNOW that I am ready.
So, I have begun to sift, sift through the sands of my life, the particles that need to be left behind, and the larger, bigger aspects that need to be carried along in my pockets.
I am reminded of playing on the beach, as an older child, when we finally made it to the ocean, and as a parent of a child, and using a sifter on the beach, to sift through the beach sand as we built castles or waited for the waves to brush us on the shore. That sifter would let all of the driest, smallest grains of sand fall through, and leave behind any treasures that were buried on the beach. A perfect shell. A little creature. A piece of sea glass.
The pieces that we leave behind, those small grains that are all along the shores of our lives, they don’t just go away as we sift through them; they return to the earth, return to the Universe, to serve a purpose for someone else that will walk this same beach path after us, or with us. Those grains of sands stick to our feet, they wash out into the sea, and they come back again. They are perpetually around, but we are okay without carrying them with us. Yet, the memory of those grains stays with us forever, because we did sift through and decide what we still needed with us, and what we could leave behind.
The lessons along the way, the people that I meet, the friends that I encounter, they all become part of my full story. Even if we lose touch, if we go into different directions, they are part of me, one of my lessons, part of my story, as I am part of theirs. I am not the same person as I was when we first met, yet I am who I am, in part because of them. And, for that I have eternal gratitude.
And, those lives that have touched mine, those lessons that have found their way to me, those grains of sand, may no longer be on my path, or may have washed away from the shore, but the presence,
and presents,
that they brought to my life will remain forever with me.
