Years ago, after traveling to the Queen Charlotte Islands on a kayaking trip, I wrote an article for Kanawa: Canada’s canoeing and kayaking magazine. I had reflected in this article, upon my trip, and the stunning beauty (as well as hidden challenges) that the mist so often concealed from sight. Xaaydlaa Gwaayaay: Coming out of concealment, recounted the story of travel to a place where rugged beauty, culture, conservation, and industry had merged into a “wary partnership”, and it strikes me now, as I reflect on my life, how much the symbolism of this earlier text, speaks to the cosmic reality that is life.
My resolution for 2012 speaks to this connection. I entered this year with the conscious intention of cultivating joy and happiness and positivity as an experience of life. Since then, I have watched with thrilled amazement as my life has taken on a whole new tempo. As my thoughts have shifted so too have my beliefs and with them, my actions and my reality. No longer do I dwell on the negative possibility of any circumstance. Rather, I take stock of what emerges within and I linger with it. As the old tapes play, I pay attention to my impulses, to my angst, to my thoughts, and to the old stories that launch themselves in my psyche. And I wait. And in this space, something magical takes shape. Change happens. In this place of pause, I give birth to new possibilities and I choose anew. In doing so, I find myself no longer attached to the suffering of old ways. I see more clearly the truth of my experience and I can hear more keenly, the delicate voice of guidance from within. I am, in essence, coming out of concealment and coming to know myself and life in a new, refreshing, and exciting way. This is, I believe, the gift of aging for it is through many years of trial error that I have come home to a greater truth.
I am grateful for this opportunity to understand and experience life differently – to embrace the “wary partnership” that exists between beauty and challenge – for it is in this interface where growth happens.
Like light and shadow, one is required in order to know the other. The key lay in one’s perspective.