The Seasons of Our Heart

listening deeply, expressing authentically, and keeping my heart in wonder

Hello beautiful you,

Thank you for being here.

With three different incomplete posts in draft form waiting for something “special” to be ready for your eyes, I’m choosing to just write.

I write to provide meaningful valuable prose for you. I feel the meaning and value in my body. My translator for “special” is always my body, my wholebody.

My body streams with cool energy up my spine and spreads across my upper back as if to say, this, write about this, this is special for your readers. My body tells me in sensations, vertical alignment, and zesty vigor writing is ready.

Which is what happened last Friday with a direct unbridled connection.

My dear friend and colleague of 25 years sent me an email, “you up for a call?” with an attachment, his colorful hand drawn scene of me flying (no wings though) with the words “Gayle is from another Planet.” Certain people always get a yes. This is one of my yes people. Besides, maybe he could tell me what I am doing here on earth…

Back in November of 2017 I wrote my friend a letter and he saved it. I do not recall a word I wrote. Fast forward 7 years and he shares the letter, along with other meaningful objects, with his beloved in celebration of their anniversary. After reading it, she says in a kind way, “Gayle is from another Planet.” I received the compliment.

[Tell me at times you don’t feel like - and want to be - from another planet.]

On the call, dropping deep, his voice soft and tender, he says, “Gayle this letter was nothing to you. It was just you being you. But it is everything to me.”

Sick in bed, coughing, sneezing, blowing my nose, I receive his precious gift of remembrance, a reminder of me, who I am, just me, and how me, just being me, has made all the difference for him in his life.

He knows my reason for being and the money work we engage is to create a better world for all beings, one client at a time.

He knows I sometimes struggle to see the depth of my impact over the last 40 years.

He knows I choose, in the face of doubt, sadness and fear, this path anyway.

He knows sharing his experience of my action will touch me.

May you receive this kind of remembrance and precious gift too. Often.

He offers to read aloud a passage from the book, The Prophet, by Kahil Gibran, shown below. I offer them here for you.

And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain. And he said:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know the pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joys.

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his comedy in silence and tranquility:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen.

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

These uplifting 70 minutes on the phone with him were followed by three hours of challenging uncomfortable events requiring more mental and physical presence than I had to give, but I did.

A generous text from a treasured local friend, asking when she could drop off the evening dinner she was preparing for us and travel snack bags for our drive north, broke the gnarly energy just prior. Tender aches in my heart ignited tears of gratitude texting my response.

Up and down waves continued all day, that day, just like they do every day.

Fixated on nothing, Kahil Gibran’s words came to life in my (our) present human experience... keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life.

Years ago in a formidable integral training, questions-about what happens farther along the path-were answered with Ken Wilber’s often quoted phrase: “higher highs and lower lows.”

Additional meaning not expressed at that time contains the jewel of teachings that can only be known through direct embodied experience swimming in the waves. When practicing like this, waves are waves. Water is wet. Movement is constant.

…. your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joys.

With tastes of keeping my heart in wonder at the daily miracles of my life, the imperative to stabilize my heart wonder burns brighter than ever.

A string of phrases, ways of being, drop through naming my experience of my up and down day.

• Unbridled courage to be bold.

• A surrender to formidable wisdom.

• Fierce love and kindness lead.

• Laughter is my retinue.

I’d love to know what heart wonder practice brings forth in you.

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At the end of April our daughter is marrying the love of her life.

Please join a thread of celebration.

Honoring our beautiful daughter through her journey - meeting her love match, getting engaged, planning a wedding - here’s a tiny window from last week into our year of preparation.

Together, Rich, Katelyn and I zoomed online in electronic memory lane collecting old photos for her to create a wedding photo display. One of my favorites (not chosen for use) is Katelyn holding our precious late pup, Amber.

Katelyn and Amber December 2003 - decorating the Christmas tree

The marriage of a child, but now an adult, is one of the joyful, expected, anticipated and celebrated life transitions. Our mind fools us into thinking planned transitions are easier than the ones we avoid. Yet when choices and decisions and progress are “crunchy”, our mind tells us we are doing it wrong, self and other blame arise, along with confusion and frustration.

Change, transition, unknowns hold a common thread of truth.

Whether “desired” or “unwanted”, every experience invites deeper insight, healing, connection, celebration, grieving, beauty and love to expand.

Release any conditioning of what change or transition is and welcome the blessing and practice curiosity asking hmm, I wonder how my heart wonders?

I’m proud of my daughter and the woman she is, “just her being her” is extraordinary. I’m thrilled to celebrate her new phase of life. My face dons a smile stretching ear to ear imagining this new committed couple expressing their love in the world.

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Thank you again for being here.

I’ll be back next month writing from my wondering heart, cherishing ups and downs, and embracing a new son.

Tend to your wondering heart, my friend, your yes people, your body whispers and nudges.

Soon welcome a season of flowers. I can’t wait!