My friend Kate Dugas sends me a text message after reading the “Even in Pain, Bliss” posting and I call her and we talk as only people who are on ever deepening spirals of inquiry can. Kate reminds me that this Karma I am experiencing as pain, as suffering, has to run its course, and that I have to feel it, let it work itself through my system, through my heart. “You have to do it now, or ten years from now, or on your deathbed,” she reminds me.
Deepak Chopra says “No Karmic debt ever goes unpaid.”
Kate tells me that I’m masking my emotions with fast-speed, caffeine and a frantic mind. “Find your cushion,” she says, referring to my need right now to meditate a while and slow things down.
She then says that I have to find this quiet so I can listen to the answer that my heart already knows. I jump to conclusions: “you mean, walk away?” Walk away from someone I have fallen hard for? “See what you just did?” she asks? “I didn’t say that.” The hardest thing for me to do right now, and the thing my heart says I must do, is step back, be patient, and allow the universe to unfold without my senseless attempts to intervene.
It’s a ten minute conversation, but it fills in so many gaps, and I am grateful beyond words for the wisdom of friends. I hang up after telling Katie what a blessing it is to have her in my life, and how much I love her. Life is made rich by the threads of white light that connect me with all those that I love, and who love me.
About Me
- Stephen Legault
- Stephen Legault is a writer, activist, organizational development consultant and fundraiser who lives in Victoria, BC and Canmore, Alberta. Stephen started writing in 1988. Kicked out of his high school biology class, he bought a notebook and sat down in the woods near his Burlington Ontario home and wrote some really awful, angst ridden poetry. Since then, Stephen has written for the Globe and Mail, Canadian Geographic, Outdoor Canada, Canadian Wildlife, and dozens of other periodicals and newspapers. His first book, Carry Tiger to Mountain: The Tao of Activism and Leadership was published in April of 2006 by Arsenal Pulp Press. The Cardinal Divide is the first in a series of environmental murder mysteries featuring Cole Blackwater. It will be published by NeWest Press in November of 2008. The series will combine gritty, action-oriented stories and rich human drama with real environmental and social justice conflicts. Stephen is a runner, photographer, and father of two beautiful boyz: Rio Bergen and Silas Morgen. He and his partner Jenn travel and explore the natural world of the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains.