The hand is a wonder.  It can contract and force, putting pressure on your world, making things happen.  Or it can open, palm up, letting a small bird light upon it.

And so goes energy.  Do I really want one without the other?  If I kept the fist tight throughout my life, or if my hands always reached to the sky, is that true to life?  I think not.  There is a time for action and a time for contemplation.  The two need each other, I believe.

There was a time in my life when doing dominated me.  I wanted to be an accountant, a social worker, an artist, a real estate agent, a life insurance agent and a teacher.  I strove for excellence.  I studied.  I stretched.  I pushed.  I made noise.

More recently, I’ve allowed myself to open to a vastness that falls around me, like a gentle rain.  I’ve let myself not know.  I’ve turned to the quiet.

There is indeed a place for both.  Right now, as I reread all the e-mails and blog posts I’ve written about Jody over the last year, Spirit opens me and love flows out beside the tears.  There is space around the words, helping me see how deeply I’m connected to you.  But the yang of that yin is my need to create a result … called a book which I hope will reach people near and far, a book which will show love and be a bridge to more love in the world.  I need to know about font styles, font sizes, line spacing, paper quality, the use of blank space, per unit cost, timelines and shipping realities.

I need to both focus and blossom, because that is the way of life.  To be in this world but not of this world, engaged and floating free, of the furrowed brow and the radiant heart.  It’s all me.