New Years Day. It’s still dark, the sun has not risen yet. I have the sliding glass door open so that I hear the soft patter of a gentle rain on the deck outside. It’s warm and balmy on this first day of 2022.
What a year 2021 was. So many lessons, highs and lows. Pain and joy. Physical, spiritual, emotional rollercoasters. Some of those rides I sunk deep in my seat, holding on as best I could, eyes tightly closed, breathing through the fear. Other rides were experienced with my hands held high, laughing and joyful.
This time last year I was struggling through knee deep snow in Pagosa Springs, living with Steve, Mick, Mojo, Zoe and Noodles in our cabin on the side of a mountain. The horses in winter pasture in Arboles.
Today, I sit in my house in Little Rock. My quirky geodesic dome house with mandala ceilings. Mick is beside me in my chair. Zoe and Mojo are gone their bodies no more, their spirt and souls forever part of me. Noodles is in her Pig Palace and it’s 58 degrees with a light rain. The horses are in Hot Springs at my friends Jim and Courtney Robinson’s beautiful farm. Steve is in Alabama visiting friends and family and doing the paperwork on his new home there.
Painting rocks began as a whim and a fun activity to do with Keely when they visited Pagosa three years ago. Painting mandala became a passion, a joy, and now a way to supplement my income. The martial artist that left Little Rock twelve years ago is now a mandala artist. I’m looking forward to creating art again. I’ll be selling locally as well as online. I’m still deciding on how and where for the online, but several have offered to sell my art here in Little Rock. I could never have imagined this, how beautiful are the ways of God, Divine Mother, the Universe.
There is a call that I’m hearing telling me to write . I will be blogging again, starting with chronicling what happened with my hip. If what I went through, am going through, can help others, then that would be another reason to be grateful for what happened.
Relationships and friendships shift over time. Some become closer, some fade away, we grow, we change, we all have our own journey. But love is real and true and powerful. What we give to others is given back. What we show to others is reflected back. Choose love. Choose kindness. Experience life with an open heart. I know this deep in my soul.
My intention was to start yoga teacher training in March. That may not be possible now but there is always the next year. In the meantime, I have a lot of knowledge about how to heal and recover from an injury or surgery. That is what I have been doing for the last twenty five years. This injury is different. A broken titanium hip and an extremely complicated revision surgery at age 64 is not the same as an elective surgery at 57. My way of experiencing this different. My time in Pagosa, my spiritual journey, my diving into yoga and mindfulness laid the groundwork for my certainty that this will be another powerful lesson that I am meant to learn. I feel led to share that journey.
There is a peace in knowing that I have no control. I can plan, I can try, I can rage and fight, but there is a force much bigger than me, that is part of me, that has a wisdom and knowledge of unfathomable depth and breadth. This was one of the hard won lessons I was meant to learn. I did not enjoy the process, but I am grateful for the knowing.
The past provides an opportunity to learn if I allow it. If I open my heart, clear my mind, and open the boxes where I have stored the stories, the shame, the hurt, the experiences. Then I can let them float away. Some return. Some change. Some disappear. It’s why I am here. To learn.
There is joy in the present. In the now. In the sacred pause between each breath. The sun filtering through the trees, the sky and the stars, the relaxed sigh of my dog, the smell and touch of those I love. The water of my beloved river flowing over the rocks, my feet. The laughter of friends, the tears and the hugs as we grieve and mourn, holding each other as we navigate this thing called life.
Change is going to happen. It is the nature of life. I really have little input or control over much of it and it’s a waste of time to worry and stress about what might be. Accept what is. I do what I can, I’ve got a good brain and I can use it. But by letting life unravel as it will, with love and an open heart, I have witnessed magic and miracles that could only come from a source much greater than me. What a wonderfully powerful lesson I have been given.
I am an artist. I use colors and patterns to express what is in me and what I see and feel. I am also the artist of my life, and the colors and patterns of the people and experiences in my palette have created a mandala that continues to astound me. We are all artists. We all paint the canvas of our lives.
A new mandala painting is forming today. It will weave and expand, dots of experiences and connections, coming together to form something unique and beautiful. There will be dark, the black of fear and uncertainty. That is as it must be. Because the colors and light, the joy and love, can only be seen against that black backdrop. My life.
Michelle Rae 