Tools for the Journey #4 - The Weight of a Snowflake

Last night I went to “inhale” (=receive) a Jason Mraz concert in Boston. On my drive home I considered the “gifts” I had received and how I could exhale them to the people in my life. My experience from yesterday is a perfect case-in-point for how each and every person on our journey (even strangers we may never know personally) has a gift for us if we are open to receiving.

Someone exhales their gift; how we receive it is up to us. Once the gift is given the giver is finished and the “how” of receiving is completely up to the receiver. It took time for me to understand the old saying: “The gift is in the giving”, but as a writer I live this every day. I write to exhale my gifts, and the act of giving has to be enough; if I attach too much to how it will be received then my giving is not as pure.

So, as I steered my Toyota towards the Bank of America Pavilion for the show I asked the Universe for three miracles to happen for me at the event. This is something I do sometimes, and I find the more pure and honest the environment I walk into, the more likely the "miracles" will happen. I am happy to tell you all three Universal requests were answered and then some.

The gifts I received may not be the gifts the person sitting next to me received. This is the wonder-full thing about gifts of this nature. Jason (et al) exhaled the same gift to all 5000 of us, yet everyone came away with a one-of-a-kind present to take home. The reason for this is Jason Mraz (the person) is the messenger rather than the message. His exhale is the message; is the gift. Through exhaling a message of hope, love and gratitude – good ripples were created which I choose to visualize as creating other good ripples in farther and farther reaching circles today.

Jason Mraz, and his merry band of brothers and sisters exhaled a gratitude-filled, love inspired mantra to the audience. This exhale is absolutely the place each of them is coming from, and the message is an important shoulder-tap in our far too busy lives. Be Love! As I listened it occurred to me in a spectacular AH HA moment...these songs, these exhales from Mraz and Company are vibrational mantras. As we sing along we breath in and re-exhale out this positive mantra to the Universe. Brilliant.

In an effort to re-exhale the positive chant from last nightI want to share a story with you which I wish I’d had the opportunity to share with Jason Mraz and his family last night.

"Tell me the weight of a snowflake," a coal-mouse (a small bird) asked a wild dove.

"Nothing more than nothing," was the answer.

"In that case, I must tell you a marvelous story," the coal-mouse said.

"I sat on the branch of a fir, close to its trunk, when it began to snow - not heavily, not in a raging blizzard- no, just like in a dream, without a wind, without any violence. Since I did not have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952. When the 3,741,953rd dropped onto my branch, nothing more than nothing as you say, the branch broke off."

Having said that, the coal mouse flew away.

The dove, since Noah's time an authority on the matter, thought about the story for a while, and finally said to herself, "Perhaps there is only one person's voice lacking for peace to come to the world."

(From: A Tale for all Seasons by Kurt Kauter)
***

Moral of this blog post - Be a receiver and a giver (an inhaler & an exhaler).
Add your voice. Yours may be the one voice missing which could change everything.
Be the messenger.
Be a snowflake.
Be Love.

Blessings on the journey!
Cheryl