This photo of Bowen Island is courtesy of TripAdvisor
I awoke here this morning on my beautiful island…for one of the last times. I am feeling the letting go in me and it is painful today. I want to fully embrace the gifts that this island has given me and know how to leave with grace. Change is so quickly upon me now. I must remember that there is goodness waiting beyond here too.. and yet, this island has provided me the healthiest place I could imagine to heal, to rejoice, to dream, to grieve, to create, to hear myself think, to sing and dance out loud and to breathe myself Home again….’
I guess I have come full circle…just as the hippies of the 60’s & 70’s in our idealistic and heart-centred spirit of brotherhood, peace and love welcomed me to this fair land, each of you have done the same 30 years later.
And so it is not only the trees and the earth and the deer and the ocean and the mountains and unprecedented beauty of this island for which I give thanks. And for the ritual weekly walks with Carolyn on the sacred paths of Cape Roger Curtis or the hike to the top of Mt. Gardner with both Paul and Carolyn last week where each of us felt lifted between heaven and earth… It is also the so many, acts of kindness I have received since arriving here.
Last month after the snow fall, Alan de la Plante showed up, upon a moments notice, shovel in hand to dig my guests car out of the snow bank…and when offered genuine thanks, his only comment was, “Hey, no worries – just pay it forward…” These shall be among the memories I shall savor and revere for all my life and only hope that I too can pay it forward.
My experience has been the same at Toastmasters. I have felt welcomed from my very first day even with my sporadic visits. I can now boast to know the true meaning of the word that was chosen by last week’s grammarian… Community. I know what it’s like to be embraced by a place and the people in it.
How DOES one say goodbye to paradise?