Make the Beast Beautiful
Hiding in Plain Sight
We all find different ways to cope with the sometimes heart sinking angst of life.
The paradox is that very same way that floods us with immediate relief can eventually slowly and silently destroy our health, relationships and life.
It seems a bit dramatic to think that our daily choices are harmful to us, I mean what’s the big deal if we order everything wrapped in bacon, live alone, sit and stare at different screens all day or have a bottle of wine with dinner?
Who are we harming?
Apparently, ourselves.
The fact that 70% of us will die from a preventable disease or to me isn’t proof that we don’t want to change our harmful habits or that we haven’t tried our best.
The traditional coaching model we’ve all been taught is to set a goal, find our why, psyche ourselves up, break it into smaller steps seems to yield short term changes and help some of us, but it’s never delivers genuine freedom.
It feels more like white knucking.
It feels like there is some more powerful energetic law that keeps working against us, and that the saying “what we resist, persists” has some truth to it.
Is there a better way?
I believe there is.
Of course, if the other way is working for you you can stop reading now, I’m so pleased for you, but if you’re like me and you’re tired of trying so hard you may want to read on.
Reading Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind several years ago, this quote has stuck with me ever since:
“The Chinese believe that before you can conquer a beast you first must make it beautiful”.
At some point we eventually come to the realization that our suffering is healed not by numbing ourselves, but simply by allowing ourselves to feel it. Staying with what is, rather than attempting to flee, fight or avoid it by white knuckling.
It seems like when we let things be, nature can take its course.
There is a great German word I recently ran across that describes this thing we do perfectly. It has no English translation but “Verschlimmbesserung” is a noun for an attempted improvement that only makes things worse.
Last week we named something that we wanted to start or stop doing that would make a significant improvement in our lives.
Our task this week is simply to see if we can make “it” beautiful.
No matter how many times we’ve tried and failed before, to transcend our doubt and find a way to allow and accept what is happening to us to be led to a better way to cope with our feelings.
To accept and admit that we may not have the control that we wish we did.
Maybe control is the problem.
Like when we’re in an airplane and we hit turbulence. Most people that struggle with severe anxiety flying report that their anxiety is actually reduced significantly in turbulence, because they realize at that point that there is really nothing they can do.
They surrender.
It’s when there are too many choices that things are made worse. When we are in a crisis situation, we go to a different place in our mind. We become more accepting and present to what is.
The same thing happened to prisoners of war. People that survived that had previous suffered with debilitating anxiety reported feeling an odd reprieve from most of their symptoms for the first time in their lives. They had no control over the situation and fighting back was futile.
The most powerful teaching I learned in my four years of University was in a History Course on European Jewry and one of the assigned readings was Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search For Meaning”. The book that took him only 9 days to write continues to resonate with millions of us around the world. He began writing it only a few days after being released from a 3 year prison sentence in the concentration camps.
In the book he uncovered the unique human qualities that distinguished those that survived the camps from those that didn’t.
“The purpose in life is to suffer well”,
Viktor Frankl
He observed in his time in the camps that the survivors were the people that accepted their fate and circumstances and nourished their inner lives. The people that rationally resisted their circumstances and fought back perished much more quickly.
It seems we’re built to be able to go inside ourselves, into the darkness, and accept it in order to be naturally guided to what is the next best step to our freedom from suffering.
To not just surviving, but eventually thriving and feeling hopeful, not defeated.
In this moment, of course it seems like an insane idea to try to love or accept something that is challenging our sanity, but if our fighting and denying is not working, why not try it?
We may even be guided to do the most important thing any human can do….to find the real meaning of our life.
Our Ultimate Purpose.
In my personal experience, it’s our suffering alone that bring us directly to its door.
“We shoot for happiness, but we are forged by our suffering”.
David Brooks
Our perceived suffering plays such a pivotal role in our lifelong journey to unconditionally love and accept of ourselves and others, while the ego works overtime to keep us in the shallows to convince us otherwise.
Our ego instincts can go into overdrive to fix or flee and avoid seeing the beauty of the lesson for good reason. It can work for us for awhile because we feel a sense of relief.
We mimic the octopus by trying to hide in plain sight. We cover ourselves with whatever is lying around us in an attempt to shield and protect ourselves from possible external threats.
It’s hard to believe that an octopus is inside this wall of shells… but here it is, hiding in plain sight.
Putting a layer between our perceived overwhelm and the imagined future threat to our wellbeing can feel soothing. It’s brilliant and instinctually adaptive in some ways, but it seems like a very short term solution. We end up imprisoning ourselves out in the open in our attempt to flee our perceived threat.
The compelling reason it’s so hard for us to stop “using x” (x = weed, food, shopping, sex, over exercising, dieting, gambling, exercise, work, social media etc..) is because it gives us some blessed relief from the grindof life.
The downside is that barrier we put up also blocks out the light and keeps us from fully experiencing our life. We’re hiding ourselves.
The shell itself is not the real problem, it’s just a temporary or short term solution that keeps us frozen in time and not fully living our lives.
In some ways we love the feeling it gives us, so the more we attempt to fix or control, the worse things seem to get. I’ve heard people admit that want to quit smoking that it feels like they have 20 friends in every pack. They help them get through the day. How do we let that go when we feel so conflicted?
I’ve done this many times myself with my depression and weight struggles.
Embarrassed by my size, it feels sometimes like I have a neon flashing beacon of light on my body letting everyone know that I can’t manage my life or stress very well. That something is wrong with me and needs fixing so I double down and try harder.
One example that came to mind is because today is the New York City Marathon.
I’m so proud of my sister in law, she has been training hard and is a participant today, in fact she may be still running RIGHT now as you’re reading this. My brother and nephews are all set to cheer her on with over 2 million other in-person spectators and the other more than 50,000 runners will run by them which is the largest marathon in the world. So exciting!!!
Once upon a time I was one those people. A memory came flooding back to me from texting my sister in law of running it in 1999.
Three guesses why I was doing it?
I may have said that I wanted to see if I could or for my health and that may be partially true, but the truth was that I really wanted to lose weight.
It was my own idea, the solution to my perceived problem. I saw that Oprah had just done one and had lost her weight, so I figured that if she could, I could. My husband and my mom ran it too. It was an incredible experience.
What didn’t happen was that I didn’t lose weight. I actually gained a surprising 15 pounds. What the? I hadn’t changed my diet, I was so careful with my food. Aren’t runners supposed to be lean?
What DID happen was that I cried tears of joy on the first bridge. I was so moved by the crowds cheering for me by name, the elated runners all around me smiling and I’ll never forget how good it felt to run the first mile across the majestic Verrazzano-Narrows bridge where I confronted the marathon's steepest incline but barely noticed it I was so present. I could feel the vibration of so many feet on the bridge and the crosswind was so strong the bridge cables were whistling.
I felt so alive and I remember it like it was yesterday.
That day in November I jiggled through every single borough in Manhattan, passed my cheering family and stopped for a hug and a high five. I heard women yelling my name in Harlem “NONA…that’s it honey, You GO Girl! ”.
I also remember feeling stuck in my snug hot vest because I was wearing too many layers and my zipper was snagged up high. I finally made it to 5th Avenue and entered into Central Park I started to tear up again. This was so hard. Every muscle ached. I’d never run this far before in my life and a part of me wanted to stop. It was harder than I imagined. But I decided that this would probably be the only one I did so I’d make the best of every moment. I was going to do it. Umm…then I forgot how big central park really is. I had my doubts once more when a bad stitch had me clutching my side, but one final push and there was the finish line. I was elated.
I actually did it.
Adorned with hardware and wrapped in a giant thermal blanket that looked like foil I set off to find Scott and together we waited for my mom to come over the line…which she did and we had a three way hug. I so happy and tired.
There was such beauty in this beast.
After the long day of running my feet were sore, my muscles were tired but we were going to go out to celebrate and then it happened as we were getting ready to go out. I SPLIT my pants in the washroom. They were my favourite brown jeans and it felt like they shrunk in the dryer so I was bending my knees to try to stretch them and then I heard the sound of them giving way. Shhhhhwwwwwrp.
Shit. They were the only pants I had.
‘Are you kidding me?’ I can remember thinking our loud. ‘God, I just ran a freakin’ marathon, WHAT on earth do I need to do to lose weight?’ I don’t think I even told anyone I just tied a sweater around my waist and walked around Manhattan feeling the breeze and carrying the shame along with me. I had just trained for a year daily to run a marathon to lose weight and I had managed to GAIN more weight.
I wasn’t able to see or hear then what my body was trying to tell me.
To slow down and rest. To listen.
I was pushing myself and being hard on myself when all it needed to calm my cortisol levels was some rest, love and appreciation for carrying me through my life. Which included every borough in Manhattan in one day.
I didn’t learn that day. I totally ignored it. But I did get hooked on endurance training.
It wasn’t until a decade later and I was longer able to walk without severe pain and needed bilateral hip surgery that I was able to listen and stop moving. My chronic pain stopped me from moving forward any further. There could be no more finish lines, thank goodness. I felt relieved. My body tried VERY hard to get my attention but I kept pushing myself.
It seems undeniable to me now that the personal challenges we face serve our highest good as the very catalysts we need to guide us back to our true nature.
So back to my point today.
FIRST we make the beast beautiful.
My body struggles helped me find myself. My Soul. To transcend my pain.
To find peace of Mind. Purpose and freedom. Happiness.
And here’s the magical thing. I didn’t have to lose a pound to find emotional and mental freedom.
In fact, I realize now that it was never even about my body or weight and it’s still not. My body was experiencing symptoms or effects of a bigger cause (fear) that I was just not able to see or hear for another 2 decades.
Last week we touched on step 1 to transform an undesirable behaviour in our lives, which was to come clean and simply TELL THE TRUTH.
STEP two as you can imagine from the title this week is an invitation to love what is.
I imagine some of you are thinking… “Nona I can’t possibly even accept this morbid obesity or addiction or heart disease or cancer diagnosis let alone LOVE it. I want it gone! Yesterday!!”
I hear you.
The weight. The hangovers. The life threatening tumour. “LET’S GET THIS DONE PEOPLE. MAKE A PLAN AND ACT”…let’s hire the coaches and start our diets on monday so we’ll get this weight off by Christmas.
That is what a mind does. It wants to problem solve.
But if you’re like me and that way has not worked for you over the long term, let’s see if we can vulnerably and consciously put down our “shields” and allow “our beasts” to become our greatest teachers.
I’m sure you’re wondering how on earth do we see our BEASTS in the most affectionate and symbolic way? Or to learn to listen to what they are trying to tell us?
To begin with, what if the truth is that we don’t need to slay this dragon after all?
What if we love it instead? See past its fire breathing and prickly resistance and to simply love and accept what is as it is.
This simple shift in perception to whatever challenge we’re facing can transform our lives in the most miraculous ways.
This always makes me think of the unlikely love pairing of Donkey and Dragon in the movie Shrek.
Our beliefs of how things should be can be the biggest hurdle for us to jump over.
Nature can teach us best when we tap into our higher intelligence or a greater wisdom to respond, not to our initial reactions based on our ideas of what is easiest.
Salmon swimming up river show us that just going with the flow is not always the best thing to do, even if others are doing it, sometimes we need to listen to our higher selves and swim against the current.
Do something counter cultural by following our own instincts.
I’ve been thinking about fear lately and how it makes us react without thinking.
I have a memory of diving in the French Polynesian waters and coming face to face with a moray eel and a group of sharks in Bora Bora and I’ll never forget the fear and adrenaline that I felt zip through my system. I could hear my heartbeat in my own ears.
Their teeth are really something…
If I was an octopus, I’m pretty sure I would have inked myself.
But after diving for a few years and learning more about all things underwater, I began to shift my perception of marine life in general and with familiarity things began to appear very differently to me.
I learned that moray eels don’t really attack humans. They might bite or lash out if provoked like us, but nothing a few stitches can’t fix. They are basically underwater guinea pigs and my fear was unfounded.
Eventually my body relaxed and I loved encountering mysterious creatures.
The first time I saw octopus in real life it was on a sushi plater in Banff. I was 18 and was working out West for a semester and I’d never been to a Japanese restaurant and a boy named Travis that was a local mountaineer asked me on a date for sushi. I had never had it. I was astounded at the beautiful tiny bite sized pieces of raw fish wrapped with rice - it looked more like art to me.
Now that I have a deeper understanding of these creatures and their playful desire to connect with humans, I can’t bring myself to eat one anymore.
They are intelligent beauties.
Have you heard of this academy award winning documentary My Octopus Teacher?
I rewatched it the other night and this little bendy invertebrate stole my heart all over again. I won’t spoil it for you, but you may already know about their ability to rapidly change their colours and camouflage themselves with starburst patterns and stripes to match their background environment to go undetected in a way Waldo never could.
This day octopus has astoundingly shaped itself like algae or some coral to hide from predators or stalk prey…
Even with their big bulbous heads, large popped up eyes and 8 distinct limbs they can shape shift and hide in plain sight.
And they are more like us than you could ever imagine. They adapt and disguise their true selves to survive.
They also throw things at one another when they’re upset like humans have been known to do. Any debris at arm’s lengths is up to be chucked at another that get’s too close to their home for comfort. When they are pissed, the conk shells fly.
I love that.
The documentary is set on the Western Cape on the tip of South Africa, a place where the sea crashes onto the land so hard that it’s called the Cape of Storms. It all started with a man named Craig Foster who was wrestling with a deep 2 year long depression. He felt burned out from working in the film industry and his demanding travel schedule took its toll on him and his family life so much that it got to the point where he didn’t even want to see another camera ever again.
I’m glad he eventually got over it and created what Jane Goodall called “one of the best movies ever”.
Craig was so depressed he had lost his will and he knew he needed to make a radical change. So he decided to head back into the ocean, to the place that helped him feel better when he was a young boy. The salty Atlantic can be turbulent and cold and he tucked his snorkeling gear under his arm and headed out to find the perfect little sheltered area that dampened the swell to free dive. He loved swimming in the kelp beds- they made him feel closer to the environment and himself.
One day he saw a tiny pile of shells that looked peculiar on the sandy bottom. It turned out it was a young female Octopus hiding from him and the movie is about his daily trips down and how their relationship and trust unfolded over the whole lifetime of this female octopus which has been cleverly edited together to make this movie. If you decide to watch it make sure you have kleenex nearby.
The Octopus went from a strange looking cephalopod to family.
It taught him about vulnerability and joy. You can tell that he was not really a sentimental kind of man, but he was moved to tears describing how this little creature helped him overcome his own depression and how his daily encounters changed the whole trajectory of his life. Watching her sacrifice her own life for her young helped him re-establish a new relationship with his son.
He found his true nature in nature and they develop a touching bond.
As nature lovers we might think we just love nature itself, but maybe what we really love is the recognition of our true selves reflected back to us in the quiet, the sunset and the puppy breath.
It puts us in touch with the truth of who we are. At our core.
The beauty and wonder of the natural world is the same beauty found in each of us. What it and we can become through mutual respect, regeneration, acceptance and re-wilding is love incarnate.
We can find our freedom IN our true nature.
All of our behaviour and life experience is to help us find our own way back home to this essential self when we’re feeling off track.
The movie taught me that we can learn from the wild and the beautiful beasts all around both inside and outside of us.
What at first may make us feel scared and vulnerable, if we allow ourselves to get still and keep showing up every day we can begin to build a trust relationship and learn what our beasts came here to teach us.
By loving them and accepting them first.
I love stories when people find their own healing and the solutions to their own life issues IN nature, even by witnessing the smallest of our species being their buggy little selves. Byron Katie and Ellen Degeneres both speak publically about the lowest moments of their lives, their deep debilitating depressions and how both had turning points and experienced deep healing and had a realization or inner shift by observing bugs do what they do.
Byron Katie’s severe depression seemed never ending and after a decade recurring thoughts of suicide, until one February morning in 1986 when she suddenly woke up to her true nature — a state of complete joy and happiness, in a moment of enlightenment with a cockroach.
She suddenly realized that when she believed her thoughts, she suffered.
When she did not believe them, the suffering stopped.
She has a relaxed, piercing presence and this bug encounter is an example of how things can be made new when we surrender and accept ourselves as we are in the present and reconnect to it.
A cockroach crawled over foot! I was lying on the floor, next to my bed – I hated myself so much that I didn’t feel I deserved to sleep in a bed – and this cockroach crawled over my foot and woke me up. As I opened my eyes I realized everything had changed. It was as if I had awakened from my sleep into a whole new reality, and I could see how my thoughts shaped my world. I completely changed in that moment, and the old Byron Katie was forever gone.
Instead I was a totally new being.
“Behold I make all things new”
Jesus
For Ellen, it was an experience of creative inspiration and a flow state after her girlfriend was killed in a car accident and she couldn’t afford to live in their place alone, she was a waitress and couldn’t even afford a decent place so she moved into a ratty basement apartment infested with fleas and watching them and being present to her experience turned into the hilarious content of a stand up comedy routine that launched her career:
"I was sleeping on a mattress on a floor and it was infested with fleas. And thought, 'Why is this beautiful 21-year-old girl just gone and fleas are here?'…"I just thought it would be amazing if we could just pick up the phone and call up God and ask questions and get an answer... It just unfolded, I just wrote the entire thing and when I finished, I read it and I thought, 'Oh my God, that's hilarious. I'm going to do this on Johnny Carson (Tonight Show) and I'm going to be the first woman in the history of the show to be asked to sit down'."
Ellen's prediction became reality when she made her debut with her skit about calling God on The Tonight Show in November, 1986 and it was the beginning of her incredible career. Ellen’s wife, Portia de Rossi, apparently played that Carson episode at DeGeneres' 60th birthday party.
When I saw her speak in Toronto she told this other amazing STORY about coming out in public then being depressed (again) and not being able to find work for a few years and going to her mailbox and running into the little girl from next door who’s mom offered to help her and do a psychic reading and when what she told her all came true it shifted her worldview.
She wasn’t trying to control her life or “make things happen” anymore, she began to align to her truth, live openly and honesty. She was guided to follow the signs and synchronicities and things began to flow more effortlessly.
Both women have influenced millions of people with their humanitarianism, honesty, humour. Just thinking about Ellen Degeneres’ distinctive dance style is enough to make me smile.
They are both open about the fact that their pain and depression was the catalyst for their freedom.
The beautiful beast that helped them see something more true.
There is something about the nature of our suffering that makes us more humble and present, which leads us to see something in the natural world we couldn't seem to access before to transcend our ego and have the instant and complete mouth dropping realization that we are not our suffering or what happens to us, but a powerful creative part of this whole beautiful dance of life.
I recently contributed a chapter to a book being published later this month called “One Decision Away” with an incredible group of women. They are all share a game changing decision that they made that changed the trajectory of their lives. In the book I describe one such wildlife story that happened in my own life that shifted my own perception of my own true nature.
How DO we learn to love what is when we don’t?
How do I love my body when I don’t?
It’s less about focusing on what we perceive to be wrong to allow ourselves to be shown and even embrace what is right.
This last story I’ll tell today that had the greatest impact on me when I was struggling with depression. It came from Dian Fossy’s research with Gorillas and Chimpanzees in Africa. I heard Marianne Williamson tell this story and it impacted me so much I went to Africa to the same region to see them for myself. She tells the story in a documentary with National Geographic of following a troop of chimps for several years.
Apparently in ALL chimp troops there exists a small number of Chimps that exhibit symptoms of anxiety or depression and they behave similarly to our human population by moving to the outskirts of the group, often not socially engaged. Some stop eating or playing with others. As an experiment, Fossy decided to remove these agitated chimps to see what would happen to the rest of the Chimp population.
When I’ve asked people at dinner parties or in conversations why they think happened, most people guess that the same percentage would become depressed or anxious.
No.
Six months later, the ENTIRE community was dead. It was suggested that those anxious chimps were pivotal to the survival of the tribe.
They were the ones sleeping on the outside edge, or often awake and alert unable to sleep. Hypervigilant and sensitive which we label anxiety today but back then they were simply the early warning system for the group warning of preditors, poachers and storms. Depressed and quiet they become contemplative and introspective and notice different things.
Their sensitivity saved EVERYONE.
What if you’re not being able to sleep at night is not the problem you think it is?
Interesting.
I’ve heard this many, many times about people pre-disposed to addiction.
They are more sensitive. Could this “diagnosis” be our SUPERPOWER??
It’s been argued even that the best crisis leaders in History have suffered with mental illness and in particular anxiety and depression. People like Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and Ghandi to name a few.
It helps us to see our perceived mental illnesses with a META purpose. Maybe even learn to appreciate and respect them as they are and make room for them in our lives.
we can accept and adapt. Wash our hands 3 times if that is what needs to be done to feel okay.
To feel about our behaviours something far beyond feeling tortured. Our pain seems to be lessened somehow when there is a point to it. Like childbirth or wars. We probably wouldn’t be able to endure either otherwise.
What if we learned to do something different with our pain?
Like LOVE it. To find purpose IN it instead of trying to control it or eradicate it?
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
In Elizabeth Wurtzel’s book, “Prozac Nation” the author describes her own harrowing journey and shares her desire with her readers: “that’s all I want in life, for this pain to seem purposeful”.
It’s not only with depression and anxiety that this can help us. It’s also OCD. Long before we gave it a name or it was added to the DSM about 1.2% of any given population has had obsessive compulsive disorder all around the world. Tesla was a famous example of a brilliant man who had OCD and lived out his life in 3’s. He lived on the 33rd floor of a Manhattan hotel room teetering between manic episodes of counting.
He was the genius he was BECAUSE of it, not despite it.
In other parts of the world and in ancient cultures, people with OCD were far from being ostracized. Obsessive compulsives were elevated to leadership positions. They became Shamans. Their hyper attendance to safety and hygiene was a boone in days gone by.
Mental illness and addiction is well known and established in our global artistic communities. Music and Art. One famous painting by Edward Munsch called “The Scream” was reportedly painted during a panic attack..
This agonized face in the painting has become one of the most iconic images of art, seen as symbolizing the anxiety of the human condition. Munch's work had a formative influence on the Expressionist movement.
Some say his anxiety came from a psychological reaction by Munch to his sister's commitment at a nearby lunatic asylum and others have different theories but in his diary in an entry headed "Nice 22 January 1892", Munch wrote:
One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord – the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became The Scream.[3]
He later described his inspiration for the image: “I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.”
He struggled with anxiety. An example of how our private perceived “madness” can also became a beautiful masterpiece when we feel it.
We don’t even need to like our beasts, but we can all learn to accept them since we have no control over them. Our hyper-vigilance. Our sensitivity. When we’re ready, if we can catch ourselves ruminating and dwelling on or particular beast, maybe the only sane question to ask is:
Can we allow ourselves to see the gifts it is offering us disguised as unease?
And my new personal favourite…“IS IT BEAUTIFUL YET?”
The Journey we’re on including our pain to me is the whole point of a soul coming into a body. To learn. To experience contrast, to suffer well and to hold on for dear life. Even if we need to say the serenity prayer out loud 16 times before lunch, it’s such a wild ride that can be enjoyed when we stop making ourselves wrong.
When we stop arguing for our limitations. Avoiding our pain.
Why did we ever assume that life was only to be happy and comfortable in every way?
That is obviously NOT true.
As Alain to Botton describes “we’re the descendants of creatures who above all else, worried”. The terror is in our genes so that makes it all normal. Worry is our default position. We are one of the only species on the planet that can’t sleep even when we need or want to.
Contemplating our life can be painful. And Freud brilliantly pointed out our anxiety and depression is pointing out our internal need for growth.
Spiritual teachings point to this as an essential part of our journey.
To FEEL it. Face it. Allow it and stop burying and hiding ourselves in plain sight.
And I guess we could maybe even buy an old bug infested mattress and start sleeping on the floor to help speed things along. Just kidding, but after watching that movie and seeing the Octopus cuddling and playing with schools of fish I, say we all at least consider removing Octopus from the menu.
I suppose sleeping on a Winston bed with Frette sheets is my will, not God’s- God’s will is for us to learn through contrast because you never hear about people becoming enlightened when all is well and they are living in the lap of luxury getting everything their hearts desire.
God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
I sure hope someone else that finishes the marathon today splits their pants.
I can see now that IT more than even the actual marathon itself was one of the best things that has ever happened to me.
With love for all of our beautiful beasts,
Rev Nona
ps. I keep this poem in my purse ..'The Journey' by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.