Give & Take

I went for a hike on the property this morning. Just after stepping down onto the trail, I called Shrek to walk with me. “Come on Shrek, let’s go! Come on boy.”

Shrek was my soul mate dog. He was 14 and his quality of life had tanked. He had cancer. He wasn’t going to suffer on my watch. Better I suffer, so he was euthanized. The vet came to our home, it was emotional, but peaceful.

I called Shrek a couple more times as I started to walk down the first little hill, when suddenly I felt a deep energy in my heart. It really welled up in me. My head said; “of course you’re welling up, you love Shrek, you miss him”. But just as soon as my mind thought that, it was pushed away, I want to say, shoved out of the way, and I know it was Shrek’s energy. I thanked him for showing up, told him I love him, and then the saturated feeling in my chest released.

I had stopped to experience the feeling, actually, the feeling stopped me, it was so different… I started walking again. I looked down and saw a rock, perfectly, smoothly, rounded out like a bowl. I recently started practicing yoga. In the last class I learned the pose of putting your two hands together like a bowl. Symbolizing giving and receiving.

I thought it interesting that a hard rock could naturally be carved out like a bowl. (And, that it was in the middle of a path I have walked hundreds of times.) The bowl shaped rock made me think about how easy it is for me to give, but how hard it is for me to receive. Hard, like a rock.

I continued on my walk, feeling gratitude. On the way back I picked up the rock to bring it home. A giving and receiving rock, like the hands. For me the rock was a physical metaphor about giving and receiving. I had asked for Shrek to come. He came, and all I had to do was receive. But my thinking self wanted to call his showing up something else. It wanted to make sense of the sensation I was feeling. Sadness and missing make sense. But this was something else. The rock was heavy, something to consider if I was going to carry it home. And the message from my body that Shrek had been with me in that moment was heavy too. Too heavy to receive? I could receive it, or not. I chose to receive.

I got home with the rock, happy to show my husband my great find. He said, “hmm”. Not in a negative way, just in a “its a rock” way. Then I told him how I saw it, what it meant to me. He said, “nice.” You might experience my story in the same way he did. I didn’t feel insulted that his reaction didn’t match mine. How could it? He was looking at the obvious. I was looking at a deeper meaning of an experience I just had.

I had asked Shrek to come to me, and he did. The rock reminded me to receive, and I did. Manifestation-synchronicity?

I brushed the rock off and brought into my office. Looking at the rock I wanted to fill the bowl. I went outside and picked a rose to give to the rock. I received the gift of receiving from the rock. I gave it a flower. Give and take. Seeing them together, the rock and the rose, made me smile.