I have always treasured this image. Two weathered hands holding each other. Broken from their trunks. Nature’s cycles wearing them smooth and erasing their original color. Holding hands.

As I write, I am six days from completing a two and a half year journey of school. With the last few days so critical to meet all the requirements for graduation, bronchitis and pneumonia set in. Had to cancel all my Friday appointments. I confess my angered disbelief that at such a critical time my body, which has struggled so to keep going, would now let me down. And then a most precious whisper read. The words described how we try so hard to manage life – our reality. The question was “If you are managing your reality, your life, how can you come into a full blossom of that which is unknown to you at this time?” (Zenju Earthlyn Manuel). To try to manage the journey, to visualize and hold to the outcome we think awaits blinds us to the true reality. We have no clue as to the amazing blossoming that awaits us. We may think we will be this or that. This will happen or that will happen. But in clinging to those images, avoiding anything that would detract from those managed images, we may, in fact, miss out on the true and even more astonishing blossoming that awaits. The reality is, we have no clue just how incredible our unfolding may be. We take what comes and allow it to unfold us.

And, so I sit. I watch my breath which is labored and fitful. I sit with the discomfort. I sit with the comfort. I hold the beginner’s mind of curiosity and the heart of anticipation. That is the journey. A journey with no calendar. And, like the weathered limbs, I hold the Sweet Hands of Life. Timeless. Unmanaged.