Choosing Paradise: Are you willing to change?

Sometimes change arrives in the moment, asking just a small favor and we balk, unwilling to alter our routine or our thinking. At other times change breaks down our door, suggesting the impossible and with tears and open arms we embrace it with a resounding, “Yes, I will”.

I stared at the airline ticket in my hand. I would receive $80 to start a whole new life, for handing it over, for closing the door to the way out. I had used the other half of the ticket a few weeks before. The very moment I took my first breath of warm, flower laden, tropical air, every cell in my being began repeating the mantra, “Stay here, you are home”. I had lived near the ocean and in the mountains, but never before had the two majesties danced before me as one, now delightfully calling my name, proclaiming, “We’re so glad you are here. Now just start over”.

There was such an astounding beauty to this certainty that had no grounds. It announced itself from such a depth within that it echoed through the Universe. The force in its desire dissolved any rational questions of “How will I?, What should I?, Where will I?” This level of trust made me giddy. My old life disintegrated and the scales fell off. The discarded skin lay in another place, another time. I was truly shimmering in a presence I had never felt before. I was undefined. I knew no one. I could be anything.

I could feel no psychic weight in any dimension. I found myself going through a doorway, into an initiation, a marriage. “Do you now accept Paradise, inner and outer, as your new life, from this day forward?” By now, my voice was no longer the only sound. Vibrant forces of nature: the palms, the ocean waves, the clouds, the breeze, the volcano, streams, and lush valleys all joined me in repeating my vow, “Yes, I will”.

Copyright © Bentley Kalaway 2009