Summer is officially here, according to those who go by the Memorial Day schedule. Where did May go?
I spent a beautiful eight days on an Amtrak train ride from Denver to Chicago and on to DC and then to Baltimore and back. A long weekend with an old friend found us catching up with long conversations, wandering the Inner Harbor area, looking for ghosts and enjoy excellent food and drink. The scenery on the Capitol Limited was spectacular, including the Alleghenies, the bright green of springtime, and babbling brooks out the window. Sunset over the Mississippi River was beautiful. I love train travel and look forward to my next adventure, as well as my next trip with my friend to explore more places.
What does any of this have to do with patients? He's really trip surely does not require this. However, for anyone who has engaged in train travel, you know the train is rarely if ever on time for arrival, or departure, even if it's the first leg of the trip. We experienced delays on both ends, including a dysfunctional bridge that needed repair 6 miles out of Chicago, and mechanical malfunctions that resulted in a late start from that City on the way home. Patience is a requirement. Leisure time is better to have when traveling by train, at least on the long runs.
When I returned home, I almost immediately dived into a new part-time job with long days. I'm still catching up on business that way did while I was gone. Meanwhile, a small book I have discovered in the lobby of the main office at my new job, arrived on interlibrary loan, and I picked it up this past weekend. The book is called One Word That Will Change Your Life.
While this book is centered on a Christian belief system, the principles are universal, including the need to prepare your heart to receive the one word that you will live for the next year. I guess my heart was already prepared. As I began to read the book, I realized that the card readings I had been doing recently, pointing me to the word "patience", were pointing me in advance of reading this book.
I have heeded the messages, and am consciously living this word in my daily life, from the frustrations of moving from assignment to assignment in my work and feeling I have little time, to wishing the nursing home staff where my father is living now would make sure he is wearing his clothes and not someone else's, and drinking water along with the chocolate milk they continually feed him.
If I just stop and remember that in two or three days I will have most of a day to myself and can create my own schedule, or that nursing homes are woefully understaffed, and those staff are poorly paid and overworked, if I can just find patience for these little frustrations, then surely as I move through the year, I will find patience with larger issues.
This includes my business. Shamanic practice requires regular dedication. Working in the realm of healing and helping those facing the final life transition requires practice and training and patience. The pace need not be frantic. The time spent with those to whom I give will be richer and of much higher quality if I find the patience to move methodically. Not every puzzle can be solved at once, but the pieces will go into a single puzzle much more easily if our focus is on that one puzzle at a time.
As I look forward to expanding the network of those I assist, I am consciously moving in a way that allows me to savor the time I have with those around me in any given moment. I would deposit a wish that we all find a little patience.
Enjoy this season. Languor in its warmth.
Lisa