Alchemy and Serendipity

Today’s prompt in Kat McNally’s Reverb15 is from Jennifer Williams-Fields:

“While alchemy is the active process of creating something of value, serendipity is the passive path to finding an unexpected treasure.

Looking back through 2015, what did you diligently try to create?  What great thing did you just happen to find?”

Oh I do love Reverb-ing.  Pondering this prompt has helped me understand something more clearly.

I’m not altogether sure I can honestly say I diligently tried to create anything this year.  I did create some things certainly, and had (have) innumerable more projects spinning like proverbial plates in the air, but I don’t really have a sense of accomplishing anything this year.

I’m not really holding judgment about that, although I confess I did have some unsteady moments earlier this year when I wondered perhaps if I had truly lost my mojo.  But I don’t think I set the container for great accomplishment this year.  And life did indeed throw a few wobble-inducing things my way.

But diligence wasn’t one of the energies I called into my year.  No, I invoked magic, and ease and grace; and did my best to listen to my heart and follow its guidance, which can and did look more like a whole lot more flitting than engineered movement.

There was an unexpected gift in this year lived loosely.  I really got to be present to all the magic that did happen.  And there was less to put down abruptly when the death of a family member invited us to enter that sacred space of grief which never unfolds in a linear way.

While I may not have actively created something in the most traditional sense, I will claim the alchemist’s skill of transformation.  I feel like I’m exiting this year with a burnished patina of gold – a year lived with some depth.

And bonus points, because I can feel myself turning a bit, face to the sun, ready to shift a little on my path in the new year.  I can see how I’m wanting to lean in with more focus; to be a little more discerning in what gets my attention; and to actually celebrate when I’ve accomplished things so they don’t slip away without recognition into the moment now passed.

I happen to think that’s really what life is about.  Holding all circumstances as “just information.”  Not a judgment about whether it’s good or bad, but rather information to help you decide what you’d like more of and what isn’t your preference.  These are the clues that help us keep on our heart’s path.

Sometimes the understanding and evaluating takes a long while – as in this case we’re reviewing our year and deciding what we want to lean into or away from for the next.  But every day offers us these decisions as well.  And there are no rights or wrongs – just opportunities to choose consciously.

The second part of Jennifer’s prompt asks what great thing did I just happen to find?  There were so many little moments of magic in life this year I might well believe I was being followed around by a little herd of faeries sprinkling little sparkles in my path.  Seeing the sun as blue, being gifted with little treasures, sitting in a room playing glockenspiels (badly!) with a group of dear friends – how do those things not happy one’s heart?  But more than anything love and friendship and great and gentle kindness found their way into my year.  And that is certainly something to celebrate.

This year I learned about the Hebrew concept Shmita, which is the seventh year in the seven year agricultural cycle, where you allow the land to lie fallow.  I felt such deep satisfaction in hearing that, as though I recognized within myself that this was year of lying fallow.  And I recognized all the sparkly points of magic and love and sweetness were all part of the filling my depleted resources, part of the deep nourishment, part of the reminder that all is well and this is simply part of the natural cycle of all things.