The smaller happenings in our life should be recognized. These are the more subtle twists and turns in our story. Every movement and encounter and action in our life – dare I say- IS a part of the larger story that is who we are and who we are becoming.
Try this journaling exercise: Using your imagination, take a small thing you do or witness and expand this thing out into what it may have an effect on, which then would alter a different path of something else, and on and on… let the narrative just come on its own and let it take its own path.
A Great Horned Owl hoots to its mate from the top of a building at 6:30am which causes the jogger to stop for two minutes to listen and marvel at this creature. By stopping at that exact spot by the curb of the road, he notices the broken bicycle reflector in the grass. Instinctually he reaches down to pick it up and in-so-doing scares a cricket to move deeper into the foliage — the jogger doesn’t notice this. The cricket has now stopped chirping which causes all other crickets to stop chirping causing the birds to also become alert to danger. And of course the deer in the deeper woods are alerted, as well, causing them to prance through the underbrush in a panic. With this, one young buck bounds onto the nearby highway and is immediately blinded by the headlights of a car, which causes more panic. Luckily the deer manages to bound off the road and the car swerves just in time to avoid tragedy. The driver of the silver SUV is woken from her hypnotic state the moment the deer jumped in the road. It was the deer’s eyes, glassy and dark, that would stick with her in her trauma. Throughout the days and weeks to come she would see those eyes and wonder what great message had been given to her. The kind words and comforts of a friend, as she discussed her incident, would lead her to finding a meditative practice and prayer. Now, with a new focus and open heart, she somehow knows, without knowing how, her present moment in time and state of being has something to do with a cricket and an owl.
This is my Journey
— Nate Long “Owl”
Graphite with digital manipulation