YOU CAN HAVE IT
In April, my family (biological and chosen) attended the wedding of two beloved chosen family members. It was the best wedding I have ever attended. After almost two months of reflection on the wedding weekend I think the quote by Heraclitus, known as “the weeping philosopher,” of the Persian Empire, describes what I have been feeling. “From out of all the many particulars comes oneness, and out of oneness come all the many particulars.” Said another way, to reach their goal (a dream wedding), many particulars had to be addressed, planned for, and executed. Once the goal was achieved, if carefully reviewed, discovery was made of experiences that had been impossible to imagine, predict or plan.
The future bride of this lovely couple was in the middle of launching a luxury hat business when the question of marriage was proposed. Filled with joy and happiness, they had to assess what was happening in their world … their specific universe. Planning a wedding, working highly stressful jobs, maintaining and continuing to develop a new relationship, and building a new business was not the ideal game plan. Not their word but mine – “Overwhelmed,” comes to mind. One literally has no idea how the mind, body and spirit will react to such radical change. Rather than make drastic changes, I would imagine they reviewed the particulars and let the results of the review be the diagnostic tool and subsequently the plan for what their life would look like for the year leading up to April.
For me, practicing the habit of working in particulars aids me in accepting the value of what is while diminishing my tendency to focus on what is not and wipes away any lurking feeling of inadequacy about my ability to accomplish the tasks at hand.
I find value in trying to be an observer of my personal ecosystem … looking at how each piece of the complex network (me) interacts with my inner and outer environment. As the overseer of my ecosystem, I am tasked with understanding my particulars, to know what is out of sync, to nurture it back to balance or to let it lay fallow for a while.
Being overwhelmed, which is most often caused by something desperately desired, upsets an ecosystem like nothing else. It is a good and early warning signal that something is wrong. Something “wrong” is a particular. Working through the something “wrong” enables one to clarify the source and location (inside or outside) of the particular. For the couple it meant that the luxury hat business laid fallow for the months leading up to the wedding.
PS…. The fact that I didn’t have to do anything other than show up made it the best wedding I ever attended.
PONDER THIS THOUGHT ---Indeed, one can have all that they desire but not all at the same time!
Love this Gwen and you look beautiful ♥️♥️♥️