Look For Evidence of What You’re Trying to Create
Last year when I told a friend that I call in miracles in my daily meditation, she said “that’s great but don’t forget that you’re the fucking miracle.”
I have a photo album on my phone entitled MIRACLES. The images that rest within it range from captures of my dog to amazing sunsets to me doing the things I love to stumbled upon things in nature or out in the world that feel synchronistic to screenshots of potent emails or text message exchanges.
I found an old rusty key as I was walking the beach the other day. Then I saw a couple of puzzle pieces near the curb on my walking route near my home. In that moment I received a message: “it’s all coming together, Jenny. Trust what you can’t see.”
A friend recently recommended I read To Shake The Sleeping Self by Jedidiah Jenkins, a memoir about his bike-packing trip from Oregon to Patagonia. She hasn’t read it but for some reason it came to her mind in one of our conversations and so she shared it with me.
I can barely put it down. I haven’t cared about a book this much since the first time I read Wild by Cheryl Strayed in 2012. And, of course, a quote on the cover of Jedidiah’s book about his book is from none other than Cheryl Strayed her self.
That’s how I hope someone describes the book I’m going to write someday.
In this magic, I wonder; did my friend know I had been gifted a bike built custom for me, and that I’d planned to do bike packing trips this summer, and that I’ve dreamed of exploring Patagonia? Did she know that the person Jedidiah biked with would talk about money and energy in the way that I’ve felt about it but never had words for my entire life? That all of a sudden my relationship to money made all the sense to me in the world to me? That I suddenly could release my grasp a bit more from the stories I’ve created around money and self worth?
Of course she knew. She didn’t know she knew, but she came in to knowing what she needed to know when I needed to know what it was time for me to know too. Ya know?
Yesterday I watched a 45 minute Youtube video about how to make sourdough bread. I had intentions of putting the call out to Facebook world to see if anyone I knew had sourdough starter but forgot, or put it off, or something. Later that night, upon learning I’d been studying up on sourdough bread, a friend asked if I wanted some of her mother’s starter.
”I was literally going to put something out to Facebook inquiring if anyone I know has starter they’d be willing to share! I’d love some. Thank you friend,” I replied.
She laughed.
“Master manifestor. Seriously Jenny - I’ve never seen anyone like you.”
Full circle. I am the fucking miracle.
“No one knows what they’re doing. If we did, we’d all be whistling Dixie.”
My dad said that. I don’t know who Dixie is or what they’re whistling, but it was comforting to know that my 60-something year old father still doesn’t have everything figured out.
I was asking him when I’d start to feel like an adult. When I’d stop feeling like a teenager in a 35 year old’s body. I confided in him that I don’t know how to do any of this. Being an adult, bridging the gap between where I am and where I want to be, making plans toward my goals knowing full well that any plan I’ve ever made has been intercepted by the Universe as it laughs. Taking actionable steps while also creating a reality where magic and miracles are real, anything can happen, and the possibilities are infinite. How do I remain open to it all?
My dad is one or two years away from retirement and plans to run a guitar building business. He’d not only build commissions but teach others how to build as well. He’s been doing this for probably twenty years but after retirement it will be a full time gig.
His guitars have been appraised as highly valuable, worth multiple thousands of dollars, but he remains humble. He knows what he brings to the table, but he doesn’t flaunt it. He’s never let his talent be his identity. He’s an amazing artist who literally had the keys to the art department at the college he attended on a full ride scholarship in Illinois after high school, but eventually got kicked out of because of…extracurricular activities. Basically, he drank a lot of beer and smoked a lot of weed.
I hope he doesn’t mind me telling you that. I mean, it was the 70’s.
But that was my dad. He didn’t follow the rules. He still doesn’t. He didn’t think being the head of the art department at a university meant anything other than having an extra key on his keyring. His best friend was an African American fellow he worked with at the local pizza shop, a friend he protected on more than one occasion in what had the potential to be dangerous situations; a bold move in the 70’s. His other best friend was a white guy with long hair who played folk music. Like everyone else, my dad is complex.
His dad fought in WWII, landing at Normandy on D-Day + 16 and liberated a concentration camp. The only thing my grandfather ever said about the experience was that there wasn’t anywhere you could look where you didn’t see a grown man cry. His mom raised six boys essentially by her self, at one point with a broken leg, as her husband was either at war, or later died of lung cancer when my dad was eleven. Dad comes from a long line of strong willed, outspoken, driven, do the right thing and take no bullshit individuals. Human rights activists and scholars and service members and hard working middle class arm chair wisdom Americans. If he doesn’t know what he’s doing at this point in his life, just as I don’t, then I must be doing something right.
He told me he’s completely floating in the void right now. He’s come to a place in his business where he’s invested tens of thousands of dollars into new equipment and machinery that likely won’t arrive at his shop until months from now due to the shipping and material hold ups resulting from the pandemic. He said he’s got a plan that he takes steps toward everyday, and sometimes comes across necessary bumps and redirections. He does repair work on guitars for now, even though that’s not the kind of work he wants to do in the long run, because it allows him to meet new people and open new doors. He shows up to his job that he hates every day because at the end of the day he knows for him that’s part of making his dream a reality, and will also provide him the benefits he will need after he retires.
“I’m completely floating in a place of trust. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I know what I want to happen. Every day I do what I can to walk closer toward my goal. I refine my craft. I make connections. I build my foundation. And I just have a hellofa lot of hope that everything I need will arrive when I need it. That people will show up. That’s all I can do, Jenny.”
Trust in what you can’t see.
What my dad said reminded me of one of my favorite philosophers/writers/Norwegian explorers Erling Kagge. He said about walking the South Pole:
“The secret to walking the South Pole is to put one foot in front of the other, and do this enough times. On a purely technical scale this is quite simple. Even a mouse can eat an elephant if it takes small enough bites. The challenge lies in the desire. The biggest challenge is to get up in the morning when the temperature is fifty degrees below freezing…The next hardest challenge? To be at peace with your self.”
Trust the process. Be present to the journey. It’s not just about where you’re going, it’s also, maybe more importantly, about where you are.
Out of this, a prayer was born:
I am the moment. The ever-evolving, ever-in-motion, infinitely expanding now moment. I am the now. By being this now moment I am in flow with the energy of the Universe. I gather my self into presence so that my existence has weight in the fabric of space and time and creates a gravitational force so that whatever is meant for me will find me.
I accept this moment.
I accept this moment.
I accept this moment.
I accept this moment.
My dad always tells me that, in spirit, he still feels 18 so he’s not the best person to ask about being an “adult”. He also says that dogs have no awareness they’re not puppies, that there is no signifier or moment of transition where we stop feeling like one thing and all of a sudden become another. They’re all just labels filled with expectations and rules that dictate “how we have to be”, and really we just have to do the best we can with where we’re at. That it doesn’t really matter whether we are 18 or 60, puppy or dog, a teenager or adult. What matters is whether we are doing what we can to listen to the desire in our hearts and let our hearts know that we are indeed listening.
I all of a sudden feel a lot less alone in the void.
Tallyho,
Jenny