A Thread of the Sacred in the Ordinary
“That’s it! I’m done!”
Ripping my earbuds from my ears and stopping to rest my forearms on the warm metal of the bridge I was crossing.
It was 90+ degrees last Thursday evening when I went for a walk in the woods (“in the woods” is pretty strong - I was on a paved path wide enough to a drive a car down.) I wouldn’t necessarily have chosen to be there. But soccer mom life means 90 minutes in 90+ degrees beside a soccer pitch on a Thursday night in August. So I’m out walking the state of forest instead of baking by the sidelines or sitting in my car running the AC.
I’d walked maybe 1/4 mile with my headphones in and was attempting to get into the third-choice podcast. The intros to the first two choices hadn’t given me what I was craving. So I was trying to listen through the extraneous intro material about the host’s program that ran 6 years ago and was getting more and more and more frustrated as I approached the bridge spanning a small creek.
Just then a flash of movement. Something big. And light. And almost silent. Just behind the tree.
I slowed and crept around the slight bend just in time to watch a great blue heron fly through the low canopy. Off to find a new fishing hole now that I’d disrupted this one.
That’s when I ripped my headphones out, hit pause on the pod, and stopped.
I rested my arms on the tall rail of the bridge and breathed, consciously breathed for perhaps the first time that day. I felt the liquid coolness of the moving stream drift up to my skin. I softened and clicked in.
I’d almost missed it. I could’ve completely missed it in my rush to connect with something meaningful. I might’ve missed the extraordinary ordinary right here and how Nature is always offering moments of connection.
OR had I been slower, more in tune, more on pace with heron energy I might’ve shared a long moment with them. Cooling ourselves. Slowing. Watching, Breathing with stream and tree and fish. Thank Goddess I at least caught a glimpse.
What I’d wanted from the podcast was the plug back into something sacred. I’d been feeling awash, adrift, wishy-washy, in a spin cycle of daily tasks and surface interactions. I’ve been missing the Goddess. I’ve even been missing my longing for the Goddess. And missing magic.
So I’d been hoping to stoke something by listening to other people talk about this mystery that’s always already here. Listening has worked in the past. Helped me reconnect. I’m open to any and every tool I can find.
But my glimpse of heron reminded me that - on that day at least - extra noise was in the way. Connection to the sacred mystery is immediate. It is right here. Right now.
Just listen
Watch
Open
SENSE it.
It’s here. She’s here
I am a person who has loved trainings and programs and group containers. I have loved for other people to created a vessel for sacred energy that i can walk into and bathe. I am a person who can and does do this for others on occasion.
And yet, on my own, I am a person who continuously drops and refunds the thread. An hour after my encounter with heron, dripping sweat from the humid walk, I’m back in the car with rowdy 13 year old boys. The thread feels tenuous, easy to lose.
Over and over again. Little by little. Again and again. Lost and found. Concealed and revealed. This is how it works. The thread is always here. It just takes an instant to step into connection.
UPCOMING!!!!
YTT Interest Meeting - if you’re curious about the Yoga Teacher Training that starts next fall please join me to learn more about it. Interest meeting is on Saturday August 22 at 12pm at SoulShine Studios (at Stony Point Mall) SIGN UP HERE (don’t worry, this commit you)
Friday Pop-Up Class - Come practice Naturally Aligned yoga two weeks from now in a fun pop up class. Friday August 28th 5:30 - 7:00 pm downtown. SIGN UP HERE.