Just
minutes after I almost missed my flight to Thunder Bay, where fourteen workshop
participants await my arrival, I am compelled to pull out a pad and pen . . . I am suddenly so full of gratitude.
It’s
not because I accidentally and inexplicably turned off my alarm clock last
night and woke up a full hour past the time I had planned, to begin my trek
across town to an airport to which I had never been; not because now I had to
speed toward Mesa in traffic before sunup; not because I didn't know
where to park; not because they refused to check my bag full of writing
supplies at the ticket counter because my plane was already boarding; not
because I had to pull my bag through security along with my heavily laden
computer bag, wearing a heavy ski parka in the Phoenix warmth; not because at
security I found an impossibly long line, which I stepped in front of trying
not to make any unneeded eye-contact; not because when I handed my ID to the
guard he said, “And
you stepped in front of all these other waiting people, why?”
Not
because he waived me through anyway, and not because the x-ray and screening
line was long and slow, and not because I received a pat-down from an
unattractive man that was a little too intimate after I forgot to take off my
belt; not because I then ran through the airport with my boot laces untied,
holding up my pants, lugging my computer bag and pulling my big green suitcase
behind; not because I broke out in a hot sweat beneath my ski parka that I
purposely did not pack so I would stay under the weight limit;
and definitely not because in mid-stride I heard them call my name
over the loudspeaker, perfectly pronounced, "John Deakyne, please report to
gate one."
And
not because terminal one just happened to be the one furthest away from where I
started; not because in the end I made it to the plane just in time and the
stewardess rushed me down the aisle with everyone staring at me with the look
that asks, “What’s his story?” and not because after all this
I found myself sweating and panting in my proper seat just before the plane
backed out of its spot and headed toward Duluth.
I’m
thankful that it all somehow worked out alright when at so many points it could
have gone so wrong, but the sense of gratitude seems larger and more
encompassing. I am
consciously resting in some divine construction, a matrix of energetic lines
and infinite connections and it feels like loving hands are holding and
sheltering me.
I
am aware of my connection to more and more remarkable souls and I see the circle of my soul family expanding
like concentric circles from a stone dropped into still water. This
grid of connection and the corresponding field of gratitude are independent of circumstances and
survive even if I oversleep, or make a wrong turn and end up standing in the
middle of the parking lot while my plane races down the runway without
me. In that alternate reality everything is still in divine order and the
field of gratitude is still available to me, but only if I choose it.
Everyday
there are so many things that could go wrong that don’t, and every unwelcome circumstance
adds another thread to the tapestry of our humanity, and every miss-step brings
us haltingly closer to the perfection of this human construction.
Upcoming workshops and
more about John's work: http://earthschoolforsouls.com/
