change ahead
It seems that if something is moving, alive, and on a journey of any kind, then it will meet with obstacles, unfriendly winds, dangerous weather, or sudden and unforeseen changes that cause a slight (or major) shift from the originally intended direction. 

 

I am of the belief and knowing that everything is alive, even the things we call inanimate….I see that a rock or a book or a star dissolve over time, and so are on their own journey of change.  Even at an atomic level, one of our most basics parts, where there is agreement to come together to act as a table, to organize as a body of water, to serve as a piece of fruit, there is motion and expansion and evolution of self, or a journey towards fulfillment of purpose. 

 

But a journey constitutes movement, and movement constitutes change…..and meeting up with the rest of All Creation….and therefore the “wild card” of Course Correction.

 

I capitalize Course Correction here because sometimes these surprising reminders of our connection to everything in the web of creation come in degrees. 

iceberg

 

Sometimes they arrive in mini packages….like a notice in the mail that we are slightly overdue on a bill, or a test score returned to us that reveals our knowledge of the material as less than the A-plus we thought we’d achieved.  Ah, we say, no big deal, I’ll take care of this now….I’ll make a slight adjustment to my behaviors and choices and will get the desired outcome.

 

Moving up the scale are the middle of the road Course Corrections….the difficult relationship in the office that causes you to seek a promotion to a different department, the house roof that won’t stop leaking until you break down and re-roof, the car that goes flat after a slow leak…..this type of course correction gets your attention in slightly more demanding ways, requiring a little more effort and conscious awareness to change your behavior and choices to get the desired outcome.

 

And then there are the larger Course Corrections, the GrandDaddy of the Course Corrections, the ones that make us stop in our tracks, the ones that cause our brains to pause thinking and our hearts almost to stop beating….those proverbial “divine 2 by 4’s” to the head.  I tend to think these occur because we weren’t paying attention to the little course corrections before the big Course Correction had to occur to finally get our attention.  Some examples of the Big Course Correction may be the auto accident, the unexpected divorce, diagnosis of ill health, the loss of our retirement stock portfolio or loss of any kind…the kind that will bring you to your knees.

 

Course correction of any degree is a necessary partner of any journey….when you start out on a journey of any kind, you state your intention in the beginning about where you want to wind up; or if the journey is just to go with the flow and be in the moment, without any arrival point, that is an intention, too.  But inevitably, we can get pulled off course, by lack of attention on our part, like the captain of a ship falling asleep at the wheel and being blown off-course….or because we have driven ourselves in a direction which is not congruent with our stated intention or purpose of the journey.  In that case, the universe will obligingly remind us of our original intention and ask gently (at first), “Are you sure this is where you want to go?  You seem to have made a wrong turn back there.”  Of course, then it is up to us to choose to listen or not.

reality check

 

I am of the mind that the universe is actually supporting us when it throws up the course correction….that it is invisibly cooperating with us in our efforts to get somewhere.

 

I believe the global economy is going through one serious Course Correction; we were certainly given the messages prior to the Big One we are getting right now that things were not working in integrity in the financial sector.  I guess not enough of us were paying attention, and so the 2 by 4 was prepared.  Many of us are really scared right now….and I understand that.  But I also believe that this was a necessary part of balancing out what couldn’t continue.  I do see it as being a good thing in the end.

 

Many times in my own life have I experienced the occasionally upsetting, certainly confounding and always, in the end, rewarding inevitability of course correction.  I have found that if I pay attention early to the little, mini course corrections, and shift accordingly, I don’t have the major pain and upset that comes with dealing with the Big Course Corrections.  Call it selfish, I call it self preservation….I don’t favor pain much, so I choose to be alert to the messages the universe drifts my way early and often.  When I haven’t caught the messages early, I have been given the opportunity to learn a hard lesson.

 

Our family also knows to be alert to course corrections as we journey, both inwardly and outwardly.  Within the spirit and psyche of each of the four of us, we are taking many journeys….and the physical journey we are undertaking is an apt metaphor for those other journeys. 

 

We found the last time that we did this that we did not wind up going where we thought we would….our intention was to be present, to be soulful, to love one another…..and so our journey was shaped and charted by those holy intentions.  In our minds we thought we would go all over the country, here and there to places we wanted to visit, but the greater intention overrode those egoic desires.  The universe supported our original grand intention and corrected us when we veered off course.  We eventually got into a rhythm of being so present and alert that we had very few course corrections by the end. 

 

But over the couple of years that we settled in Colorado, we got a little unconscious again….it took a few course corrections to get us to this point, where we are on the road once more.  Now that we are here, in the familiar RV that has a different backyard every place we go, and in such close proximity to one another, the old awarenesses are flooding back.  We are listening deeply again for the pulse that guided us so exquisitely before…and I feel us getting closer and closer to it.      

 

In what ways have you observed course corrections work magic in your own life?  Are you experiencing one right now?