Transitions - One

This Friday, I finished my last day at my "career job." I had given three months notice, then worked another three months half time beyond that original notice. It was what someone called "a long exit ramp." Sometimes, it felt like I would never see the end of that exit ramp. I thought I would have plenty of time to plan, to dream up my new, post-career life, but I seemed to get knocked over by wave after wave of business during these days. In those months of transitioning out, I did one very wise thing, however: I booked a week in my heart-home on the Northern California coast, a week to transition out of my old life and into my new. Today, I arrived.

When news spread that I was leaving, many people reached out to talk. The theme was generally very similar. They envied my leap into the blue and wished they could do something like this themselves. Or perhaps they were already on the way to making such a leap and wanted a kindred spirit who would walk with them along the way. Because I have met so many others who are in transitions, career or family, I have decided I will write about my own translation into another life.

Each day of my seven here, I will write. I have no idea if dreams will come in the night or if I will find messages whispered in the waves as they break on the beach. I just know that I do my best dreaming in "edge places." This is an edge place, a place where sea and sky and rock meet together in a crash of life and high drama. Here, I know anything can happen. So, again and again, I return to this place I call home. I let it reclaim me. I let it teach me.

Yes, I am here as a student. I sit at the feet of my mistress, hoping to learn to listen again, and to remember the mysteries hidden in the fog, the secret language of raven and hawk, and the ever changing cadence of the sea song. I turn my palms up, open to receive and to give. I am a humble student. I am literally here to reinvent my life, and I know that I do not want to do that reinventing out of my own history.

Why me and why now? Maybe it came when I turned sixty. I felt young and able, but that year carries a weight. I wondered how many more years I'd have to work and to contribute and suddenly knew I did not want to waste any more time. I wanted to use my creativity, my passion, and most of all my spirit to add to our world. I wanted to help. Now I think on the news, of Ukraine, of global warming, of domestic violence and political polarities. I know I need to use my voice, my full voice, to contribute. I cannot be a passive observer.

So, here I stand. I have created a pause in the non stop trajectory of my life. I am ready and willing to begin again. I stand in this edge place, listening, refusing to move forward until body, mind and spirit are in harmony again. Journey with me. Find your own edge place. The world needs our voices now. As John O'Donahue says in For a New Beginning:

Though your destination is not yet clear

You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning

Unfurl yourself. Unclench the fist that has been clenched, trying to control the world. Say yes. Say it now. Unfurl yourself.