Coming to the end of another year and I let myself carried away with the wave of all the rush to remember everyone... Have we "bought something" for everyone we know? How easy it is to be swayed in asking no questions...
And then it dawns on me: what if we could not "buy" things but we would have to make something for each person we care about? Make something using our hands and imagination?
Even more, what if we forget about things? Simply focus on creating something memorable for all people that mean something to us? Have the power to give them a happy moment?
...see that list disappearing, as realization hits: how much do I know about all these people beside hints about "things they like" or "things they hope will make them happy?" How much do I really know about their dreams and their hopes and what really makes them happy?
How much does an oak know about me when it makes me feel so complete just by allowing me to rest under his branches? How can I share love like an oak does?
My two dogs pull me out of my daydream and drag me out for a walk up Bloody Foreland. A little storm is brewing on the west, but, I say, we'll be back before it hits.
As with all good things, we are caught in the storm... up half way the hill, I can see the dark cotton blankets coming towards me like curtains to different worlds... like veils protecting different truths...giving me a very very short glimpse...
And seconds later I feel the full blast of wind and water against my face and my eyes and, up here, almost suspended between sea and land and sky, with all this energy running through me, I am as happy as I might ever be... as tingling lines of life run through my veins. And I feel them just like when I first set my foot on this place almost twenty years ago .... a place that makes me happy from inside out, with its wilderness, its howling winds and crying rains...it makes me content with just being, like resting in the company of an oak...
How do they do it? How do trees and places and waves hand out love and happiness as if they know you?
So I make my short-term resolution. In the last few days I have left of this year, I will try to be silent and supportive like an oak, accepting and encouraging like a mountain, soothing and alive like a wave, for all the people in my life... and from the lessons I learn, I will know what the next step will be ...