I know what it’s like to spend a long time in between. It’s like outgrowing a shell and moving through the world without one until you find the next roomier one to inhabit. There’s something very vulnerable about this in-between space and it can’t be rushed or numbed. I mean, you can try but it won’t get you where you’re going faster.
While I was in this in-between space, I spent a lot of time thinking about snails.
A few years ago, I encountered some extraordinary snails on a mountain trail in California where I was doing a silent meditation hike.
Right before we hit the mountain, a beautiful, bright blue bird flew out of the forest and I gasped but couldn’t ask if anyone else had seen it.
Then as we went up the mountain a coyote stopped us in our tracks, looking at us before moving on.
All the way up and then back down the spiral mountain path, I avoided stepping on these big beautiful snails.
I started to think about life from each perspective: the blue bird, the coyote, and the snail.
But it was the snail that stayed with me as I came back into my life at home in Toronto and navigated back pain recovery.
It was the snail that stayed with me, as I inched my way back to my former strength and fitness.
It was the snail that stayed with me as I put one foot in front of the other every day.
Things take the time they take and then suddenly they are different. We hear something, we meet someone, we have a conversation, we try something new, we heal, we feel the change in our bones.
The last time I went back to California there wasn’t enough rain for the snails to be out. Leading up to the trip, I had been dreaming of spiders, and seeing them in my house more than usual.
Here I was suddenly getting all this spider energy, and on my last hike of that trip, I saw the most glorious spider in her web and I knew this was the beginning of something different. Something creative and interwoven, something magical and even potentially a little scary but there was no turning back.
You can read a little more about what this has been like here.
And, if you’re in between right now, I can’t rush you to what’s next but I can accompany you on the journey and help you see what’s emerging. That’s what I’m here for.
