“There is a balance point in the movement between intention and acceptance.”
Today in the Pacific Northwest, we have gone within, retreating from a record snowstorm that has effectively paused all movement, all forward focused activity. We nestle in a wooly, comforted quiet, and release our urgency into the drifting whiteness of the moment.
A decade ago, almost to the day, I sat at another window watching snow fall. I was in a place I did not want to be, directed by circumstances I had tried to shape, elevate, redirect, and avoid; intending instead to align it to my sense of destination. In the wake of the economic collapse in the United States, I found my professional opportunities limited to really one viable option: accept a job I did not want, with a company I did not respect, in a location I would not have gone voluntarily. On that day, however, in that place, the weightless elegance of the snow becoming a meditation on grace, I gave it permission to fall.
Here’s what I know. There is wisdom in giving residence to that which is already true. There is a liberty in understanding where the journey begins.