Drinking Poison As Wine

At sunset on Friday evening, I went sailing with a couple of friends. (Whoa dude... me, out for a joy ride -- what a vacation!) Sitting on the roof of the boat -- apologies, the nautical term escapes me -- I found myself deep in a conversation about consciousness when I heard a clink and a plunk.

"Oh! You lost something from your pocket," my companion told me.

"Yeah, I should have warned you about that," said my other friend. "Objects in pockets are not safe on a boat."

I thought a moment about what it could have been. My eyes widened. "I lost a stone," I said. "I lost a carnelian stone that is very special to me." The wind seemed to pause as I held my own response to this event: surprise, curiosity, and a small bit of mourning.

The sadness I felt touched the bittersweet goodbye of truly letting go and celebrating the connection I had enjoyed with that stone. I found it two years ago, polished as if for a setting but comfortably naked of metal wrappings in a bag of jewelry gifted to Seda. Its surface warmed quickly, golden red with a small dark occlusion offcenter. I have been carrying it with me off and on over the past year in my pocket as some comfort and support in touching what is sweet and earthly.

I sat a moment looking off across the lake in wonder. I did not remember ever releasing something of value to me so easily and joyfully. Yes, there was a joy to the letting go as I trusted that the sliding of that stone from my pocket into the depths below carried some meaning in the moment or thereafter, and while I did not delve deeply into what that might be, I settled myself with the very gift of that presence to possibility. I did not search my pockets.

The evening's beauty only grew my state of awe, and as the sun's last rays topped a nearby hillside, I reached into my pocket to discover the stone tucked safely against my thigh. Surprised again, I pulled it out to share with my friends who took in the last golden light of the evening through its dark amber lens. The man who owned the boat gave it back only reluctantly. "It gets warmer and warmer the more I hold it," he said.

Where that stone went or did not go is beyond my understanding. "I know I saw something slip out of your pocket, bounce off the edge there, and fall into the water," both friends said. I, myself, had heard the sounds. But I do not remember anything else that could have been in my pocket.

I met the surprise of two other "misfortunes" with the same curious openness since, and I realize I am experiencing a sense of detachment that I have not previously known. Yes, it was me who chose to leave the garlic hanging outside and now, after so many summer rains, it is beginning to rot. The pain has registered since, but my initial awareness did not include any self-blame or even worry for the consequence. Likewise, I noticed only surprise as I rounded the corner this morning to see the freshly stained deck turning pale in the morning dew where it did not, apparently, get time enough to dry before the evening's cool set in.

There is time to cuss and make faces as I work with the repercussions of these events, yes, but the deep seed of fear that had accompanied such discoveries in the past did not taken root in my psyche as I first witnessed them. I am working with what is in the moment, accepting my present annoyance, but fully trusting in the Universe to hold me as my path thus shifts towards what I will next step into.

Almost two years ago, I resolved at the New Year to learn to take in unexpected disaster as if it were a friend with hardly a beat between. Someone dear to me pointed to an Indian god who "drank poison as if it were wine." Yes, I told him, that's what I would like to do.

I had no idea what the training for that particular goal might look like, and if I had, perhaps I would have thought twice. Nonetheless, the events of the weekend suggest I am well on my way to journeyman in the field of winemaking, and I am counting my blessings in all of their sundry forms, unexpected though they may be.

A toast?