Fashion perfect moments out of ordinary ones
By Renée Tillotson
Let’s be available. Present. Antennae up!
When a moment in the ordinary stream of life shows with an extraordinary opportunity, grab it and go for the ride! Find where it takes you and see what’s created.
Take, for example, Carol Ann Deighton leading her ordinary life in Carmel Valley, California, and see how she made herself available to living creativity.
One day Carol Ann gets a long-distance call from her high school 4-H Club friend saying that she’s bred her dozen miniature goats for the first time, and now she’s swamped with baby “kids” about to arrive. She knows that Carol Ann is a nurse who has delivered many human babies, as well as a trained horsewoman who has helped many a mare to foal her colt.
Most of us would consult our calendar of activities and consider our weekly routines. We’d commiserate with our friend, give her a few tips on animal husbandry – if that was something we knew about – and wish her well.
Carol Ann could have said, “Gosh, I wish I could help, but right now I’m taking a lot of online classes. I’m dealing with some health issues. And I have to make sure my grandmother gets to her doctor appointments…” And so on.
But those pregnant goats certainly couldn’t wait for Carol Ann’s perfect moment! Remember, creativity doesn’t wait!
What did Carol Ann do? She quickly packed a bag, hopped into her car, gave Granny a pep talk call on her way out of town, and made the 13-hour drive to Longview, Washington. There she experienced an exhilarating month helping baby goats make their way into the world.
The time she spent with her friend’s four-and-a-half-year-old stood out as especially perfect moments. Carol Ann taught the little girl to stick her arm in and feel how the unborn babies were positioned inside the nanny goats. The young vet-in-training learned to detect whether the babies were properly presenting “nose and toes” or were about to be born breach. For the many little goats who were not “nose and toes”, their human helpers massaged them into the proper position to guarantee a safe passage into the world.
Carol Ann allowed a month of literally “creative” moments (resulting in 36 baby goats) to fashion themselves out of one phone call on an ordinary day.
So if, on one of your ordinary days, your antennae pick up a flutter in the field of possibility… open yourself up to it!
Creativity doesn’t wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moments out of ordinary ones.
– Bruce Garrabrant
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