May 13, 2022
Another longtime local retailer, Beads and Blue Lotus, has closed its doors in Santa Barbara.
It almost made it to 40 years, which is a stellar accomplishment in the cutthroat retail industry. I don’t believe they closed because they suffered irreversible losses during the Covid lockdowns. They made it through that time, and only now are shuttering their small, eclectic storefront.
A brief but profound sense of loss engulfs me. This elegant jewel of a store was on the “when I am unencumbered“ list of fun places to visit, fun things to do. Jewelry-making classes and camaraderie with the crystals and aura crowd.
Gone now, never to return. The owners are retiring, the inventory has been sold.
I know that change is the only true inevitability. I just wish there weren’t so many changes occurring, and to occur, that I view with surly resistance rather than joyful anticipation.
*****
This is the thing about change. We can plan for it and attempt to push situations or events in certain directions, but Universe and fate, not to mention the iron boot of government, can shake us about like a dog with a toy and we are tossed willy-nilly in a direction we didn’t choose. We must play the hand we’re dealt.
No matter how frequently I lecture myself about acceptance, going with the flow, and being patient, change that I don’t like never lands benevolently but always with a jolt.
Most “negative” changes are sudden and impossible to predict. Literally an earthquake, perhaps, or something like the tiny four-acre brushfire that started a mile away on Mother’s Day and had half the neighborhood standing slack-jawed in the street, gauging the fierce wind and smoke and wondering if we ought to pack up and leave.
That unanticipated event could have led to massive, heartbreaking change for hundreds of people, my family and neighbors, a large chunk of my community. We were lucky; our firefighters jumped on it and quashed it quickly.
But fate can change on a dime, the guiding hand of the Universe on the reins of our lives can yank us this way or that, and we must go as it directs, whether we wish it or not.
*****
There was a phrase I heard decades ago, attributed to Robert Frost: “moving easy within harness.” An apt description of a horse, mule, or ox making the best of its lot as a domestic beast of burden. (Frost was using it to describe writing verse within certain poetic forms.)
But are humans, too, supposed to submit to the invisible direction we’re receiving, the ghostly hands upon the reins of our lives? Are we supposed to believe, and accept, that we are being driven on a certain journey, metaphoric bits between our teeth and a heavy hand yanking when we dare to try and break free of the prescribed path?
*****
I get pretty cranky when I think that “somebody“ is controlling my life. It helps a tiny bit if I imagine that the “somebody“ is actually myself. My better, higher, wiser self. The self that is not only the human person being directed, but the energy / entity / soul with hands on the reins.
It helps a bit, but most of the time, not enough to offer true peace.
So where can I attain true peace? How can I accept that, appearances to the contrary, this life represents my wishes? The spiritual view might be that whatever happens, or doesn’t happen, it’s something that I set up before this incarnation as necessary experience for soul expansion and growth.
This makes me realize I have a slightly combative relationship with what I view as my soul. I’d really like to sit down with it, face to face, and tick off one by one my grievances. Why is my body not as optimal as I want? Why do I have so little freedom? Why, why, why?
What I’m really looking for, of course, is for these non-optimal circumstances to improve so that I’m more comfortable, freer, happier, more able to experience joy.
When I imagine this, I imagine my soul looking back calmly and mutely until I get the point.
Whatever that point may be. It’s no doubt something to do with allowing the circumstances to be, because they are, and adapting my cantankerous self into whatever degree of acceptance I can manage.
*****
Beads and Blue Lotus is gone forever. The future experience I was looking forward to won’t happen, there.
Given the horrific personal and global challenges we are facing, it’s an insignificant blip on the radar of fate.
Maybe so, but it’s my radar and my blip. It’s what I have to work with. So, soul, what wisdom do you have for me from this experience, this feeling of loss?
It’s an opportunity. That future experience was not real. And you can no longer visualize it into being because that particular venue has vanished.
Make your own venue. Invite people over and conduct a class. Get out some incense and candles and crystals, and make a big altar on the dining room table.
You may not feel you exert much control, but you can create more than you believe. When your belief matches your higher vibrational abilities, miraculous and wonderful things can occur.
Well, that’s easy enough. Just believe I can, and I can.
The image of a butterfly pops into mind. I’m pretty sure the butterfly doesn’t have to strain to believe it can go from earthbound caterpillar to colorful flight. Perhaps my next little task, nudged into awareness by the reins of my soul, is to draw some butterflies and place them around my house. Reminders of souls that can fly, right here, right now, on this Earth, just as it is. And so can I, just as I am.
