You know that moment when the universe gives you a sign that's so smack in your face you can't ignore it? You know that moment when you witness, in a sort of slow motion movie, that everything falls into place right before your eyes? You know that nagging feeling when you have doubts about the direction you're headed; taking a left turn, or maybe taking the road less traveled that ventures off to the right, and then life let's you know you're right on track and you're doing great!?
I had a couple of those moments recently on my trip to Turkey where I did a sweat lodge ceremony for a wonderful group of young business professionals as part of their training weekend.
First off I have to tell you that whenever I do a ceremony I have doubts. It starts well before the actual date, these thoughts of "who do I think I am", "I'm not equiped to do this work", "what if I'm unable to offer people what they need", "what the f... am I doing?!", "I won't know what to say", "what if Spirit doesn't move?", "what if I fail?", "I'm not ready yet, I need more time to prepare" etc. I'm sure you're quite familiar with these kinds of thoughts and associated feelings. We all have them. Even after ten years of doing ceremony with people I still go through this inner struggle every single time.
Right up to the point of starting the ceremony all these feelings of inadequacy surface, pushing me to take my ego out of the way so Spirit can move, demanding my surrender. It in fact helps me to get into the exact right state of being needed for the work I'm about to do because my response to those feelings is to go deeper into prayer, naturally forging a stronger connection to Creator until I'm in alignment with the highest possible outcome for everybody involved. Then real "magic" sometimes occurs... I never know if, when or what is going to happen but I'm always amazed at the absolute perfection of it when it does.
I often get little hints and signs from nature and when I was gathering the rocks for the sweat I was visited by four animals. One of the first rocks I picked up had a little brown-reddish frog sitting on it that I hadn't noticed. It looked at me then jumped off and hopped into the bushes, speaking silently of transformation and moving between states. Then, a little further down the path, I was attracted to some rocks in the undergrowth on the right side of the path when to my surprise I heard a shuffling sound. I leaned closer to have a look and there was a tortoise having its breakfast of juicy leaves! A little later, when carrying two big rocks, I was surrounded by 5 or 6 butterflies dancing happily around me for the time it took me to take the rocks to the pile. Then when I almost had all the rocks piled up at the site of the sweat lodge fire, two common cranes (not native to this region!) flew low over the sweat lodge site, disappearing behind the trees.
All I could do is smile and be grateful and continue what I was doing.
But the universe never tires of playing and more animals were about to visit. Buffalo. Wild water buffalo. Even the owner of the land had never seen them before, but there they were.
I had closed the door of the lodge to start the third round and had just given the people an analogy that spoke of buffalo and had to do with a certain aspect of the focus of the third round of prayers. Then someone early during this round asked to leave so I opened the door and at that exact moment a small herd of water buffalo trotted past the sweat lodge site. The people serving on the outside cried out in excitement and I stuck my head outside the door just to glimpse them vanishing around the corner. After a few moments of allowing the excitement to settle and the magic to sink in we brought our focus back into the lodge and I closed the door to continue the prayers. The moment I closed the flap the buffalo re-appeared and trotted back the way they came into the wilderness of the hills as if they were saying,
"We only came because Spirit sent us and now it's time for us to return to where we came from. And all of you who witnessed, it's up to you to remember that life is animated with magic, filled with goodness and with love, and if you're open to it, IT will find you!"
That day in the hills of Istanbul we did well and were gifted with something unusual and unexplainable. For a moment all my doubts ceased to exist and tears welled up. It was not because of me all these animals and the buffalo appeared, on the contrary; it was despite of me. It was a gift for which I'm deeply grateful and feel humbled to have witnessed. For me personally it was a great affirmation that this road less traveled that I'm on is the right one and I need, yes I NEED to push on regardless because only good will come of it.
Yet I know, come the next time all my doubts will be there again, waiting for me in the ambush of my mind and what I get to do is pray some more...
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