Field Guide to
What Really Matters:
Surrender

A few years ago I experienced a serious health issue that made it impossible for me to continue living in the high mountains of Colorado where I had spent the previous 25 years. Overnight I had to pack and leave behind my home next to the National Forest, my forgiveness garden and meditation path, and the hiking trails, river paths, and wildflower meadows that had nurtured me for so much of my life. 

 

I grieved what I had lost as I settled into my new home near the ocean where I felt completely disconnected from nature. The ocean was so different from the mountains—I didn’t know how to adapt. 

 

One morning I went for a walk along the beach on wet sand at low tide, still wondering how I could ever get comfortable in my new surroundings. I looked down to see a scalloped line of pink rose petals scattered along the sand in front of me where the receding tide had deposited them. 

 

I recognized that the petals must have been dropped into the sea by someone somewhere during a ritual—a funeral or memorial or even a wedding celebration. The ocean had brought them to this shore just as I was walking by in my grief—and it felt like perhaps they had a message for me. I gently gathered up all the petals, feeling gratitude that the ocean had shared them with me when I was searching for connectedness.

 

Holding them to my heart I said a prayer for the person who had scattered them. I sent peace and love to them and a message that I would care for these petals with reverence. Then I arranged them in a spiral shape on the sand where the next high tide would carry them out to sea once again, perhaps to surprise someone else on a different beach.

​

I had surrendered to leaving the mountains—I had no choice. But I was still resisting and resenting that necessary life change. And then I remembered another time when pink rose petals were sent to me. 

 

Several years earlier when I was living in the mountains I had gone for a grief walk on a path beside the Blue River on the day my niece died of breast cancer. I was filled with regret that I hadn’t gone to visit her one more time before she died and wished for a better farewell between us.

 

Then I turned a corner and saw rows of wild roses that had just bloomed with bright pink petals and the sweetest fragrance. They were Tracey’s favorite shade of pink and I knew she would love them. I heard the sound of her laughter in my head and I recognized that these roses were a message from Tracey: it’s all okay. Everything is okay.

That day I gathered pink petals from those roses along with other wildflowers that were in bloom along the path. I took them to a bridge that crossed the river and dropped them into the water one-by-one. I said my farewell to Tracey and heard her laughter once again.

 

Pink rose petals showed up in my life on two different days when I was struggling to accept loss and change.  When I finally connected those two days in my mind I began to understand. The river flows to the sea; the banks I walked at river’s edge in the mountains are touched by the same water that carried my dropped flowers away from the bridge and gave me rose petals when I was struggling to surrender to my life by the ocean.

 

I knew then that everything would be okay. I would honor Tracey’s memory though I will always miss her. I would find a way to adapt to new surroundings though the mountains will always be in my heart.

 

Sometimes we need reminders to help us recognize what is right in front of us.

We are connected to everything and ultimately nothing is out of place,

even though we may not be able to see that reality for a long time.

By surrendering to the flow of life we become stewards of our own life force. 

We can move with more grace through the challenges of life when we learn

to stop trying to control what is not ours to control and just ride the waves as they arise.