It’s been quite a week here in the paths I travel in my daily life. First of all, spring is in full bloom and I have probably breathed in a pound of pollen. My eyes and sinuses and lungs are saturated. While pollinated, I had several days where my schedule was triple booked and I was paralyzed by what to do first. I completely missed several appointments while attending to emergent situations, and my calendar became my worst enemy. A few times, I ignored my calendar and followed my heart; those moments gave me the most satisfaction. When I sat still, I would find my eyes moist with tears. I wished I could blame the pollen.

A Lenten season of cultivating sacred space, a Holy Week of journeying, and Easter filled with the hope of resurrection.

I kept thinking about that cadence this week, wondering how it all fit together for me. Why did this Easter week seem so unbearably intense? Why was I feeling so stuck when there are so many possibilities? I was puttering around in my yard, putting some little starter plants from their root-bound containers into larger spaces of growth and thinking about this. Thunder was rolling on the horizon, and my little transplants that had been uprooted were about to get a much needed drink in their new surroundings. As quickly as the spring rains came…watering the seedlings and washing the pollen from my walkway…my eyes were opened. The small point of light glimmered before me, right there in the metaphor I held in my hands.

I don’t live out loud on my blog when it comes to life decisions that will inevitably make themselves apparent over time. Those events are the resulting detail of a larger process. The underlying heart and soul of this whole week has been the small point of light at the center: the quiet, persistent and ever-present voice that beckons me to be exactly who I am, exactly where I am, spreading my roots in open soil so I can grow. I have realized time and time again while chronicling that journey here story by story: I have learned to trust the small points of light that lead me.

Change did find me this week, and I have chosen to leave my container to be planted in fertile, open ground. I am grateful for all the support I have had, and continue to have, in this process. These words from John O’Donohue have been my constant companions during this week of decision.

For The Time Of Necessary Decision

The mind of time is hard to read.
We can never predict what it will bring,
Nor even from all that is already gone
Can we say what form it finally takes;
For time gathers its moments secretly.
Often we only know it’s time to change
When a force has built inside the heart
That leaves us uneasy as we are.
Perhaps the work we do has lost its soul,
Or the love where we once belonged
Calls nothing alive in us anymore.
We drift through this gray, increasing nowhere
Until we stand before a threshold we know
We have to cross to come alive once more.
May we have the courage to take the step
Into the unknown that beckons us;
Trust that a richer life awaits us there,
That we will lose nothing
But what has already died;
Feel the deeper knowing in us sure
Of all that is about to be born beyond
The pale frames where we stayed confined,
Not realizing how such vacant endurance
Was bleaching our soul’s desire.
~ John O’Donohue