Shifts Happening Out There

We have now entered a time when the line between dark and light has become more crisp. I see it like a skipping rope stretched across the sidewalk, enabling us to hop from side to side with a lot more ease. Many of us have felt a little more aware in the MOMENT that if we choose the same old way of approaching people and situations that we will find ourselves in the hamster wheel again. Running breathlesslessly and getting no further towards our goals.

Speaking of hamsters, last night Riley and I cleaned his hamster's cage. Poor little TB doesn't get out of the cage much these days, he's almost a year old and periodically gets fogotten in favor of Lego Star Wars. And although we know that come summer, TB will be soaring over the yard in the Millenium Falcon, much ship building must take place in preparation for the flight and while the engineers are at work, the astronaut sometimes gets forgotten. I placed TB in his little plastic ball and got to work disassembling his cage for cleaning. He scrambled around on the kitchen linoleum for maybe 15 minutes, but the moment I got the cage back together he manuevoured the ball right next to the cage. As I watched he actually extended his little hands out of the ball, and grasped the bars of his cage, then began scrabbling madly at it like as if to say "Enough already, let me back in! I want to go home." I was incredulous! What? You haven't even checked out the living room? Not that I minded, those balls are like little turd wagons, spraying hard little brown pellets with lightening speed when he really gets going. Those turds I can do without.

But I digress...animals can teach us much. Little Lilo, our center pug, approaches life with a curiousity that sometimes gets her stuck in precarious situations, mostly with her head stuck in something and her litttle dog but being the only thing visible to indicate where she is at. But someone always comes to the rescue. That's her experience, so she continues to discover life in her own quirky way, knowing that no matter what, someone will help her out if she gets stuck. Her failures are just as entertaining (and to her as well, I believe) as her victories. Lilo might be, in all actuality quite small but in her mind, she is much larger.

So where are you? What do you choose? The cage is a relatively safe place. If you embrace the moments when you are out of the cage, using those unfamiliar challenges as opporunities to explore without judgement you just might discover that you were safe all along, no matter where you are. And if you are like Lilo...well, remember, eventually, no matter how stuck you get, someone will always show up when you can't handle what you have created. Maybe that's the most important thing of all, tursting life, trusting yourself, trusting others, it's all the same.

Something to ponder: When you give someone what they really need, you get what you need also.

Until next time.