I rode on my first roller coaster in years the other day. I'd remembered the excitement of them, but had forgotten the sheer thrill and terror. As I rode, the metaphor for life shined through: we can grasp on to our situation, try to anticipate (often successfully) what is to come and how we will handle it. But another way we can move through life is tuning in to what we're feeling right now, in this moment, and letting the rest come as it may. On a moving roller coaster, this latter option can involve closing your eyes and just feeling the sensations of the ride, of course. But I found that it was also possible to keep them open and sort of mentally step back from what my peripheral vision was telling me. There was a way to allow for the possibility of change, despite the fact that I believed I knew what was just up ahead.
I've been moving towards following my guidance in day-to-day living rather than letting my personal plans and motives determine most of my choices. This requires a release of control, an unfamiliar relaxing of my vision of how my day will go. It requires me to accept potential change in every moment. The roller coaster ride has been a helpful tool for this work, as I conjure up the feelings of speed, of hills and dropoffs, wild turns, all thrilling and all entirely outside of my control.
The walk to my sit has become my daily practice in recognizing and following this inner guidance. I almost always would prefer to walk the shortest, easiest path to my sit, to get it done first, and then explore and see what's new in the woods. (There is always something new in the woods.) But to let my inner vision/god/spirit/creator guide me, I loosen up my grip on this plan and watch attentively for that tug that lets me know I'm supposed to go this other way, or up the hill there, or around this stand of trees instead of straight down the path. I sometimes find out what the reason was, and I sometimes don't. Today was one of the times that I got to see immediately what the reason was, when I looked up to see this sight:
Now, there are two mounds of earth in this picture: dirt excavated during burrow-building. The one on the right, the paler one, I am familiar with, having passed and peered into it many times. (I take it to be a groundhog den.) The one on the left was not there two days ago; the rust-colored soil is still dark from the moisture under the earth.
Here's how it looked standing beside the old den:
And looking down into the new hole, with my boot for scale to show how much soil was unearthed just in the past two days:
Happy riding, everyone! Let me know what you find!
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