Making Peace With What Is.

This is a story from way back in 2008 but reading a posting from a friend on Facebook reminded me of it — and it was just what I needed to remember today.

Sometimes we can’t change the outer circumstances of our life as quickly as we would like. But as what we think, what we feel and what we receive are always a perfect match then it’s really important to make peace with the now that we have created up to this moment.

To do that, all we really have to do is acknowledge that we created the situation. And by making peace with it in that way, we can at least ensure that we won’t create it again. Remember, in the physical world there is a time-lapse between what we create and what manifests. It can take seconds for a physical change to occur or it can take months. A small fishing boat can change direction in few metres or so but an ocean liner takes 20 miles.

Making peace does not mean going into denial as in 'it's fine...I'm fine...' when you're not - and it's not about gritting your teeth and enduring because it's 'good' or 'worthy' to do so - it's about seeking for the better thought in a difficult situation and building blocks to happier thoughts in order to reclaim your power.

One of my favourite phrases at a challenging time is Catherine Ponder’s ‘I can hardly wait to see the good that comes from this!’ Once you can say that, then you’re on your way to something better.

This story is from a trip that Lion and I took to Montana and although it was six years ago, that amazing holiday is still warm in my heart. And there was a lovely example of making peace with the now within it.

Our friends, Ris and Joe run an impressive Leadership Coaching company. They use horses to help people realise how they relate to others at work and play and during our visit they wanted to give both Lion and me a session with the horses in the Round.

What you do is to wander among their seven very different horses and pick one that you want to work with through your intuition. You’ll always pick the right one. Then you and that horse go into the Round (a circular corral) and either Ris or Joe teaches you how that horse and you are just the same and how to gain each other’s trust.

I was really keen to do this as I’ve always loved horses and ridden since I was nine. Lion wasn’t so keen because he’s a bit wary of big animals but he was up for giving it a go.

The first bit of making peace with now was when Ris and Joe simply had too much work to do to be able to take time out to work with the horses and us during our stay. For a day or so I allowed that to unsettle me a bit – you know the kind of thing; hanging around in case instead of just going out and doing something else that I wanted to do and trusting that all would be well.

But once I’d come to terms that it might not happen at all and if it didn’t, that was okay, and I’d had a lot of fun walking in the horses’ huge field with them and grooming several of them, then I was absolutely at peace with it.

Then, of course, Ris found the time...

It was early evening and I’d just led a workshop at the local Unity Church so I wanted a little time to gather my thoughts so Lion went first. I just wandered among the horses in the outside paddock at the same time as him and was quite sure that, when my time came, I wanted to work with Billy, a young red-roan appaloosa mustang who was broken to the saddle but very shy.

Lion went into the Round and time passed as he and Walker, his horse, began to get to know each other. It was Montana in late October and evening and it started getting seriously cold.

Time went on and it became very clear to me that the sun was about to set and time would run out for me to have my turn. And we were leaving the next day. So, frozen to the bone, I started working on making peace with that.

Oh God it was cold! But I didn’t want to go inside because I was fascinated by what Lion and Walker and Ris were doing. And I was so pleased to see Lion working with a horse and I knew that if I walked away he would be likely to stop the session or at least interrupt it. I love horses and can hang around them whenever I want to – I used to have my own horse a while back and I did some learnt-from-a-book horse whispering with her (to very limited effect I must admit!). And I was just so thrilled to see Lion losing his fear of horses and realising that both he and Walker were getting into an incredible accord.

So I made peace with the situation and watched Lion and Walker and the amazing, totally glorious orange and crimson sunset across the mountains of the sacred Bozeman valley and I realised how utterly, utterly lucky I am.

But I was still awfully cold! So I sent up a swift prayer to be able to endure out there until Lion had finished and let go and let God again – and within 30 seconds there was a warm breath on my cheek. Billy the mustang had walked quietly up behind me. He put his head over my shoulder and placed his chest against my back warming me through. It was glorious.

I knew from Ris that Billy never approached a human voluntarily so this was amazing. Gently I reached back with my hand so I could touch his neck and stroke him and he leaned a little further into me.

Once Lion and Walker had finished, I patted Billy’s neck and walked forward to congratulate my husband. And Billy followed me. He did what’s known in horse whispering circles as ‘join-up.’ It’s the biggest mark of trust a horse can offer. And he did it for me! And all I had done was stand, watching my husband and making peace with the situation.

It was one of the best moments of my life – I kid you not. I was so thrilled. And so chuffed when Ris telephoned her husband, Joe, to tell him all about Billy and me – because Billy had never, ever done that before in the Round, let alone out of it and they had been considering selling him on because he was not responding to their work.

That's Billy in the picture at the top of the page, working happily with one of Ris and Joe's workshop participants last year. So, in perfect symbiosis, Billy and I helped and healed each other and that is good to know.

The Wisdom Cap Pilgrimage

The plumber came round on a Tuesday morning wearing a navy blue baseball cap with an image of a mountain and the word Wisdom on it. It really floated my boat to think that you could walk around with “wisdom” on your head so I had to find out how to get one.

The answer was simple: there’s a town called Wisdom in western Montana and they sell caps…

At the time, my ex and I were living somewhat precariously in Bozeman, Montana, trying to run a café. We had visa problems which were soon to ensure that we were forced to sell the café and move back to the UK. The whole story of how I got a visa in order to return to Montana, sell the café and get my beloved beagle, Didcot, home, have been told elsewhere in this blog. This is the story of the hat.

While I was living in Bozeman on my own, I was in such fear that I decided to set myself some goals to raise my spirits. The main one was to travel to Wisdom (I could do with some, I thought) and get myself a cap.

It wasn’t an easy journey; it was scorchingly hot for a start and my car didn’t have air conditioning. And the prairie dogs were more than usually suicidal on the smaller roads that led to this tiny place in the middle of one of the most beautiful nowheres in the world. But after a two-and-a-half-hour drive, I got there.

There were two questions that came into my head on arrival in Wisdom, Montana, the first being “where is it?” when I was standing in the middle of Main Street (Wisdom is very small). The second was “why on earth would anyone call this place Wisdom?”

The answer to the second one comes from the famous American explorers, Lewis and Clark. They actually named the three rivers in this area after attributes of Thomas Jefferson, the US president who had funded their trip. The locals however took a fairly dim view of rivers called Philosophy, Philanthropy and Wisdom and reverted to Beaverhead, Ruby and Big Hole. The town however kept the name Wisdom.

Be that as it may, I bought the cap. I was very pleased with it even though the assistant tried to point out that a cowboy hat would suit me better. They didn’t have “wisdom” written on them so I wasn’t interested.

Nine months later, when I was back in London and my ex and I were still together, he travelled to New York on a Gilbert and Sullivan exchange trip. He asked if he could borrow the cap to wear. I didn’t mind — though it didn’t suit him either. It was on that fateful trip that he met my successor and the marriage was over.

By the time I was compos-mentis enough to ask him if I could have the cap back, he had thrown it away.

Odd how much that hat meant to me. It wasn’t even a reminder of a time when I’d been happy but it meant something even if I couldn’t express what.

I tried several times to contact the shop where I’d bought the cap – searching the web and trying international directory enquiries but drew a blank. But something inside me wouldn’t let go.

The whole Montana thing, tied up with the end of the marriage, haunted me for years. It required lots of re-framing from “total, dismal, miserable failure” to “amazing adventure” but I made it in the end. It became a goal, a quest, a spiritual duty if you like, to recover completely both emotionally and financially so that I could go back to Montana with a clear heart even if it seemed to be for no other reason than that I’m a Taurean and I wanted my Wisdom, Montana cap back!

It took ten years until my heart and soul were cloudless enough to dare to hope that it could be done but the moment there was no pain left, I said, to my husband, Lion, “Can we go to Montana?” and last Fall we did just that.

We flew to Seattle (and someone had left two complete slices of cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory in our motel room fridge as a welcoming present!). Then we drove across Washington, Oregon and Idaho and into Montana. It was so beautiful…

I thought I might cry as we crossed the border to the US state that my ex and I had loved beyond all reason and Lion made sure I’d got some Rescue Remedy to hand. As it was, I was fine; delighted to be back after 10 whole years and capable of being just as rude about the town of Butte…

Guess where we headed first? Yep, Wisdom. But would they have the baseball caps? Would the shop even be there? Would I be able to find it in this metropolis that had swelled to 114 people?

Yes, it was there on Main Street (still pretty much the only street) and it was such a rite of passage to return to that great outdoors shop and meander over to the shelf which held a small pile of baseball caps. They weren’t navy blue; they were green, but they had the very same mountain and the word “Wisdom” embroidered so what the heck? I put one on and turned to Lion grinning all over my face.

“They don’t usually suit you,” he said tactfully.

“I don’t care,” I said. “I got myself a Wisdom baseball cap.”

That’s it really. It was a pilgrimage. A rite of passage that was as important to me as climbing Mount Everest or trekking to the South Pole might be for others. I’d done it; full circle.

It wasn’t necessary but it was still terrific when, three days later, Lion turned to me on Bozeman Main Street and said, “Yes, I could live here. I can see why you loved it so much.”

And it was extraordinary to stand on that very street where my heart had felt so broken and filled with fear that I was in physical pain — and feel nothing but contentment.

The Americans call it closure. Sometimes you can get closure in the safety of your own home; sometimes it has to be done with a letter or a phone call. But sometimes it requires an adventure. And the call of that baseball cap was palpable.

You know something? The pilgrimage could never have happened if my ex hadn’t thrown that cap away. If I’d had it back all those years ago when we broke up, it would have gathered dust in a cupboard, loaded with the fears and resentments of a difficult time only to have been thrown out as a pain-filled memento. Instead it became a quest; part of a call to healing and, eventually, a fabulous three-week adventure across the Rockies with someone whom I love and who loves me deeply in return.

What’s the prosperity message here? Was I just seeking wisdom? Was it that I was searching for something that didn’t suit me?

Perhaps it is that a hideous final straw, like the casual throwing away of something that meant a lot to you by someone who doesn’t care any more, could be the starting point for your great healing adventure: maybe even the quest of your soul. So often I hear clients saying “I don’t know what I want.” To know what you want is incredibly important, even if what you want seems silly, like a Montana baseball cap. Behind that silliness will be something important that is calling and yearning and grieving.

Nowadays, I wear the cap out walking with the dog on sunny days. There’s a regular group of us who cross paths with our dogs in Moseley Bog. I’m writing this now because yesterday one of them said with a chuckle, “I like your cap. We could all do with some of that.”

“Thanks,” I said.

She nodded, “It looks good on you,” she said and, whistling to her dog, walked on.

For more pictures of Wisdom, Montana, visit my Facebook photos page