Sometimes You Just Need To Throw Your Ring Off a Balcony

Life has a funny way of showing you what you need to do. Sometimes, what originally seems like the worst possible circumstances is exactly what needs to happen. This is true on all degrees of levels. It might not be clear at first, and you might even refuse to accept it or unable to believe it. Sometimes in those devastating moments we need to find stillness. If you can just calm yourself from the inside out and look at the world through clear and unbiased eyes all the answers will come flowering straight to you. This practice is nothing new, either. The Art of Taoism was crafted and perfected for over two thousand years. 

"Once Confucius was looking down into a gorge where a great waterfall crashed down to a huge roiling chasm so violent that no fish, tortoises, or even alligators could survive there. Suddenly he noticed an old man appear to tumble over the falls into the maelstrom. Horrified, Confucius, along with several of his disciples, ran downstream in hope of saving the poor unfortunate, only to find him strolling merrily along the bank, singing to himself." 

- Chuang Tzu

A couple weeks ago I accidentally threw a very precious ring of mine (a Chakra ring) off the Balcony, it was dark and we could only hear the sickening 3 story fall before it got lost somewhere in our neighbors jungle. Literally, it is a jungle. I did not mean to throw it, but it was a cold night and as I was cleaning our deck of leaves from a huge tree it just flung right off. Of course I immediately in a frenzied panic ran down to fruitlessly search for it, for hours in the dark cold. I even had my boyfriend and our neighbor helping me, with tiny flashlights. It was no good. 

For days I was busy, panicked and frenzied. Film School keeps one extremely busy and my Schedule does not really include daylight hours for searching forestry backyards. That did not stop me from having both my boyfriend and our neighbor look - and seeing as our neighbor was a huge gardener it seemed a good chance. A week went by and no cigar. I felt helpless and devastated. This was not just any ring. I had not taken this ring off for over a year and I could still feel it's weight on my hand. I felt so naked without it. It kept my chakras aligned and without it I felt displaced, as if somehow everything was wrong and off. I had fallen out of alignment and my stress level just continued to rise. Of course, I still had no time to search for it more then a handful of scattered minutes here and there... and the couple chances I did have to look for hours I was always growing more and more sure I would never find it, and more and more unhappy. 

Finally Halloween (today) rolled around, and by some sort of random miracle I had nothing I needed to do (at least not until later in the day) and my morning was free to search. So search I went, in the pouring rain with a bright red umbrella and the knowledge floating in the back of my subconscious mind that if I did not find it today, I never would. Once again we looked and looked, thinking about the physics and gravity and even which face the ring would end rolling up. That familiar sad panic began to set in, and as our search was proving once again fruitless I just momentarily closed my eyes and found a stillness... an inner peace and acceptance. If I did not find that ring, then maybe It was not meant to be mine... Maybe I did not require it anymore, and someone else or thing would. Just after this acceptance while standing in the middle of the garden, about to leave I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was a shine of silver. 

I did not react, I paused. Still, my eyesight adjusting to the light again and fixating my depth perception to pull the sliver of silver into focus. Amidst a thorny twiggy mess of a plant, at the very seam they all rooted together was nestled a strand of silver. I kept staring, feeling the time to move had not yet come. Then everything came clear, or rather everything else went out of focus and there was my ring, meters ahead of my literally entangled by thick brown twigs, barely visible but certainly there. 

Only then I acted, moving forward and claiming what was always mine. As I put it on I realized it had not even broken, scratched or chipped... The whole jeweled interface was just as it had been, cleaner even. The band however, had been bent - but at just the right angle that the ring fit snug, as opposed to just a hint too loose that it would always slip around on my finger, it's weight attracted by gravity. 

Now it's perfect... and all because I threw it off a balcony. 

elatedly, 

Danielle