Diving In
You can’t learn to swim by looking at a lake.
Sitting on the shoreline, observing the water, and studying the technique of other swimmers will never teach you what it’s like to dive in. It is only by taking the leap that we can know how it feels to be immersed in a different element.
The ability to experience life with fullness often requires the energy for courage to do something new or uncomfortable. The extent to which we can tap into this energy and let it fuel the experience of life is directly related to the integrity of the spine and the nervous system.
The quality of the relationships we have with ourselves and others, the choices we make, how effectively our physiology functions, and how well we feel and move is all mediated by the clarity and the coherence of the nervous system. This is the reason chiropractic is interested in the spine and improvements in these quality of life measures are a hallmark of the discipline of Network Spinal Analysis.
It’s one thing to get your feet wet, but the best way to explore the breadth and the depth of the Lake of Life is to dive in.
See you in the water.
A House of Light
The Punta Gorda lighthouse was built in 1910 along a stretch of beach that came to be known as the Lost Coast. In the Pacific Northwest, coastal fog and rugged strand made passage by ship dangerous, especially prior to the sonar technologies that only came into wider use in the 1940s.
I had the good fortune the spend a few days backpacking along the Lost Coast and was able to see and climb up the skeleton of this hundred year old structure. The brick, iron, and view are all that remain of a project that was built on an inaccessible coastline. It was placed here not because it was beautiful, not because it was easy, but because it was needed.
Considering the lighthouse this past week and current challenges that face the planet and the life that lives on it, I was reminded of one of BJ Palmer's epigrams:
"It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness."
Good Fortune
Every once in a while, a fortune cookie offers true wisdom.
Nearly two years ago, when visiting Seattle on my initial reconnaissance mission to the Pacific Northwest, I had dinner with two friends, one from high school and one from college. At the end of the meal, some fortune cookies were passed around and we all cracked them open. Fortune cookie fortunes contain all manner of messages, some generic, some insightful, some funny, and some absolutely nonsensical.
On this particular occasion, I was gifted with yet another sign that I was on the right course. It read,
Getting together with old friends brings new adventures.
I held on to that fortune for nearly two years, waiting for the right time to pass it along. This past weekend I was fortunate enough to have the sense and the resources to travel back to the East coast to attend the wedding of my good friend. I presented the fortune to his best man, our mutual best friend. It was a small token, but oftentimes the simplest things are the most profound, and the most important.
