Broken Red Buds and other metaphors

"We must give up the lives we were planning in order to have the lives that are waiting for us."
-Joseph Campbell

As I read the email thread of my women friends, a litany of change unspools, ranging from job loss and untimely death to new love and beginner gardens, and everything in between. At the same moment, our glorious adolescent red bud snapped apart under the weight of all this rain--clearly NOT the threat that some are facing, but a metaphor for the times nevertheless.  Life is changing- it always does- but much more dramatically and painfully right now.  It is cause for fear and just wanting to hunker down some place safe (like the cocoon of best friends) and eat chocolate. That's a perfectly appropriate first step.

But I am both pragmatic and an opportunist: there must be a path forward!  A wise teacher in my life, Martha Beck, offers this: Ride the tsunami of change like a surfer.  Eyes wide open, fully present to what is, flexible and relaxed, believing in our resilience, steady on the surfboard of our values and integrity, ready to innovate...and releasing attachment to our fixed ideas of how it was supposed to go. Easier said than done, but I take comfort in seeing each of us upright on that surfboard. Even if we fall, we always have chocolate and friends.