Windows of Opportunity

About two years ago, at Shira’s suggestion, I worked with Dale Swan. Her fabulous work with Tibetan bowls physically changed my energetic vibration in a positive way.

Shortly after we started working together, she was diagnosed with a cancer recurrence. This time around, the diagnosis shook her at her core, and she stopped work to focus on healing.

We connected very occasionally, and each time, I witnessed her struggling more and more. I heard it in our brief phone conversations, could feel it in her emails messages and once, when I ran into her, I saw that she did not have the strength of life force and the confidence that one has when you are feeling well and grounded. To me, she felt smaller and scared, and it scared me.

After that, she sent an email to me saying that writing would help her, but she was unable to get any words out. Could I work with her on that? For a million reasons, I never did get back to her, and we didn’t communicate again.

In recent months, I have been thinking of her and feeling her presence in the way that I feel when people have died. I was afraid to check and kept pushing the feelings away. But recently, I woke in the middle of the night, again with her presence so strong around me. I couldn’t get back to sleep until I googled her name.

And yes, she had died.

I read her obituary. I checked out her website, and I re-read our old email correspondence.

I got to learn all these other dimensions of Dale, like her work with the Indigenous Grandmothers and as an ordained minister, and I was sorry that I didn’t get to explore those with her when she was alive. I was sad that I didn’t step into the opportunity to help her write again.

She did indeed drop into an abyss, but as I read more, I learned that she rose out of it to write again. A few months after she wrote to me, she had a breakthrough and her writing started to flow. She got to record her story for her children and her grandchildren in a way that was powerful for her and, I hope, for them.

I read as her voice grew stronger and she regained her grounding. Learning this made me feel a little less guilty about not stepping up.

Bigger than that, though, I paused in wonder at how, if we are supposed to be doing something, God will somehow provide that window and the support. We may need to be patient, but the opening will appear and we can choose what to do.

For whatever it is that would help you to grow into who you would like to be, I pray that the right openings present themselves and that you are able to see them and step into them. And I am grateful for the openings that I have been given, and for my strength in stepping into the ones that I have. It always changes my life.

Love,
Marie