“We do not take a trip... A trip takes us.” ~ John Steinbeck
Of all the things I’ve learned in my 14 years as a professional artist, the most crucial wisdom I’ve collected is that in the end I’ll know very little of what I’ve contributed.
Living and creating abundantly is about presence and receiving, openness and acceptance, and waiting to see what evolves. Very little of what we’ll do and become is about us at all.
There is no control as you accept your place in this world. There is no certainty. There is the gratitude of feeling yourself settle into all you were meant to be…and then becoming even more than you’ve dreamed. Beyond yourself. In spite of yourself. Because you’ve learned to give all of that self and release “wanting” more, evolving into the very essence of your contribution to the journey that shapes you.
Like a morning that flickers alive with muted, pastel brilliance, to be swept away in the next instant by the glory of the day’s sun, we are a passing note in a symphony far greater than we’ll know.
There’s peace in that inevitability.
For me, this is everything: accepting that all I can ever do will flow forward, if I’m diligent; a passing melody, a vibrant tone merging with the rest, offering richness before fading; heard in echoes, memories, warm smiles of remembering; a beauty that has faded, a gentle breeze lifting on the wind, experienced every now and again by those who are themselves open and receiving and accepting; never to be seen again, but never truly gone.
We wait for moments like the above—my first morning at this year’s sabbatical to the folk school.
If we’re lucky, we become them before they fade. We capture their promise. We accept the wealth of what they can show us. We absorb and reflect all that were able and know that it’s enough. We’re enough.
This moment is always enough.
Create here, today, and you become and enduring part of the magic; the trip that takes us and goes on and on; a journey so much more about others than it was ever a part of us.
Until long from now you, too, are a rosy glow, smiling down on a morning’s promise, inspiring others to love the same gift that once graced you.