Snaking Sea

"In sacred space everything is done so that the enviroment creates a metaphor." - Joseph Campbell

Edisto Island lies among winding rivers and curving ribbons of sea. Snakes of water. The twenty-four mile road that leaves Highway 17 and heads out into the sea, twists and turns and carries me like a song, like a psalm, in its healing beauty and rhythm. The island is called Paradise, and is chock full of snakes, real, living snakes. Who doesn't long for Paradise?

startled at the grace

When the student is ready the teacher appears. How many times have I repeated this wise phrase? But to see it anew is another. To be teachable and open to seeing the teacher arrive is the great gift. Robert Henri, the legendary art lecturer, taught, in his wonder of a book, The Art Spirit, that there are two kinds of people in the world: students and non-students. True. It has always been so easy for me to tag others when I meet them as open or not. This week I am startled at the grace that has chosen me and enabled me to see my own smug self, the resistant self, the know-it-all one. "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." How simply brilliant!