Since hearing about Columbia last week, I have been getting so many supportive emails, phones calls, texts, and comments. They mean the world to me and reaffirm my initial feeling that my path lay in another direction. My friend, Blair, wrote me a particularly beautiful note that I am going to take out every time I feel sad. Her message was, “I hope this clears out the year for you and opens gates and canyons, mountains and oceans to explore as you enter a new year.” My friend, Laura, sent me a similar message about 30 seconds after my blog post went up. My mom and sister followed quickly thereafter. Several people posted incredible comments to this blog that made me smile wide. You see why I adore them?
I can already tell that the canyons are opening, that the path is clearing. I felt it all weekend in yoga training. I’m even experiencing it as I’m sleeping. It’s as if I was released to dream a little differently, more freely, than I was dreaming before. It was like breaking through a cloud cover to find that sunnier skies laid in wait for me to arrive. My friend, Lon, didn’t offer me any advice or guidance. He just said “I can’t wait to hear what’s next.” That one simple statement made my answer, “I don’t know”, a reason to rejoice, rather than a reason to be afraid or sad or disappointed. He isn’t trying to tell me what I should do next; he’s just saying that no matter what’s next, his support will be there. And now you see why I adore him, too.
The thought that keeps crossing my mind is that the canyons are always open, the gates of the life we imagine are always swinging wide, welcoming us in. What makes the difference is whether or not we choose to see them, whether or not we have the courage to walk through. Life doesn’t go according to plan most of the time; sometimes the life we get is very different from the one we bargained for. And we have to remain flexible and open to possibilities, even if those possibilities were things we never imagined would happen.
When I got home last night, I read my horoscope from my local paper, and it seems that even the stars are echoing the exact words of encouragement that I’m getting from my beautiful friends, family, and blogging pals. “Trust that you feel a certain energetic relief, relaxation, and the growing sense not that you have enough, but that you are enough…it is fair to say that everything is about to change – in ways you would have wished for, if you could have ever predicted what was possible.” Now that’s a reason to jump out of bed in the morning. Open canyons, here I come! 1, 2, 3, leap!
The image above is not my own. It can be found here.
Christa Avampato 
