She was blonde, tan, young—wearing brown pants, a cut off brown t-shirt, hefty work boots and a cowboy hat. A real working farmhand. She lit up with an innocence and love of life that touched me to the core. And she couldn’t do enough for me.

The cashier directed me to her to ask about eggs, to see if they’d gotten the delivery. Yes, they had. But then there were other eggs from the farm that she’d gathered herself this morning. They were small, but very fresh. Would you like to see so you could decide for yourself? she asked, heading from the barn towards the farmhouse. On the way, she asked another worker, How much are our eggs? They were more expensive, and smaller, so she wanted to be sure I had my choice.

She quickly reached the front porch door. It was locked, which surprised her, and a woman I judged to be the farmer’s wife had to let us in. She wasn’t particularly pleased. The girl with the long blonde hair walked cheerfully past— I’m going to show her our eggs to see if she wants them.

This 20-something had created a heaven that no one else could steal. She delighted to show me three-dozen miraculous eggs. The first ones of the season, she said. She’d eaten some this morning and found a double yolk. She told me to pick the dozen I wanted and then whispered, These are the freshest. She loved the one little speckled egg. Did I want to trade that one into my dozen? Or trade in some of the bigger eggs from another dozen? How could I turn down all this love? Of course I wanted the eggs!

As we walked to the door, the farmer’s wife was leaving at the same time. The blonde farmhand called out, I can sell eggs today to the CSA people, right? The answer, with an edge: Well, we usually only sell them on Saturdays. My millennial friend shrugged and beamed. Oh well, I already told you could have them so… She took my cash and ran back to the cashier at the barn.

Returning with my change, she asked, Do you want one from the hen house? I was stunned. Sure! Off she ran to get me the freshest, most precious, warm, little brown egg I’d ever seen. Do you want me to trade one? I said, reaching into the carton I held. No, she waved me off with a smile as she walked past, heading to the farmhouse refrigerator, two more eggs held in her hand.

I left feeling more completely served that day than I’d ever been in my life.

A friend called the other day to share a waking dream (a way in which life speaks to us through an unusual event in our day). He’d gone to the garage to get into his car. Upon opening the garage door, he noticed an ant on the threshold. From the ant’s perspective, an enormous wall was suddenly gone, leaving it open to a massive, unfamiliar landscape. It appeared a bit befuddled by its newfound freedom. My friend felt the immense impact of the ant’s experience, perhaps reflecting some inconceivable shift to open up in his own life.

I wondered, would this be an adventurous ant—one who might dare to cross the threshold into the unknown? Or, would it be frightful and retreat to the three remaining walls that could keep its world smaller, safer and contained?

I read about the extraordinary capacity of ants. For example, the tiny leafcutter ant can lift and carry in its jaws something like fifty times its own body weight. That’s comparable to a human being lifting a truck with its teeth.

The ant parable continued to roll through my life like a ripple of resonant sound. In a matter of days, I was offered a business opportunity of equal measure to the fourth wall of my own container being removed. I had to make a decision. Would I remain in safe, familiar territory or accept the invitation to step out into a quantum new universe of exploration? When weighing my decision, I felt comforted by the story of the ant, knowing I wasn’t the only being on earth facing enormous possibility.

Crossing thresholds is a continuous cycle for one who is fully and humanly alive. We’re presented with a moment in which we either say Yes to life and expand, or say No and retreat. There is no right answer, except the one vibrating at the frequency of authentic response.

It may take the strength of an ant to carry forth the mission to which we’re called. We may feel small and insignificant, even powerless at times. Yet, if we’re being honest, something inside us knows Life must be met on its own terms, and that even the smallest within us is capable of great things.

Without expecting to, I took up the game of golf last summer. I was motivated by a desire to help out a friend whose regular partners weren’t available; I didn’t want him to be lonely. So one day I heard myself say, I can play 9 holes with you tomorrow morning before I meet my client. I’d only ever played twice in my life, but I love mini-golf, so what the heck. I had no idea the gift I’d discover.

The first blessing was traveling light, taking nothing onto the course but a bottle of water and a snack. No cell phone and not missing it. The second was how absorbed I became in the moment, paying attention to subtleties of the body that affected the trajectory and velocity of the ball. The third was a feeling of expansive freedom—walking the beautiful landscape in heavenly weather; the feeling of the pendulum swing and the whack! sound that sends a ball aloft; the bliss of releasing muscular tension for alignment, competition for simple enjoyment. When my ball went into the drink or I missed it entirely, my generous golf partner gave me unlimited “mulligans.”

Later that month, I shot a full round of 18 holes. On the 11th hole, I experienced a shift that changed my game. I realized I was holding tightly to the club handle, and I decided to loosen my grip. Whoosh! My ball traveled twice as far as my normal bounce along the fairway.

At Christmastime, a friend of mine gave me Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons, a thin primer on the essentials of grip, stance and swing. I read a little. Surprisingly, I didn’t activate my old pattern of overachievement, but perused the book lightly over the winter to see if I could learn a little about where to place my attention.

Now it’s summer and, with a few tips, I’m reaching scores that have actual names—like triple bogie, double bogie, or bogie. I even got my first par! More importantly, I’m practicing new habits of letting go of self-judgment, criticism, frustration or the pressure to succeed.

Truth be told, letting go is not my forté. I hang on to friendships, relationships, habits, thoughts and feelings way past their sell-by-date. But I’m slowly learning to release my grip. I wonder what life would look like if I let go in every way as much as I let go with golf? If I imagine new landscapes bringing as much joy and freedom as I experience on the golf course, might I even run towards my future?

Every morning, I begin my day with a spiritual exercise. This week, I found one on Love and Miracles. I learned from my reading that the order is important. It’s not that we see miracles and then love life; it’s that we fill ourselves with pure love for life, and then the miracles find us. As an experiment, I tried filling my heart first and surrendering to divine spirit, which knows exactly what will be of greatest spiritual benefit to me. I welcomed the miracles from that starting point, and here’s what happened.

First, a new client landed in my inbox. I received an email from a gifted writer who wanted to sign up for coaching— someone with whom I’ll very much enjoy working. Anyone with her own business can appreciate the value of a joyful client connection

Next, I decided to run a morning errand. I never run errands in the morning, and I’ve never just “stopped by” my hair salon. But I wanted to exchange a shampoo and conditioner, and for some reason, I got into my car. When I arrived, I greeted my stylists and, much to my surprise, found one of my dearest friends sitting in the chair getting a hair treatment! I had no idea of her appointment. Though we typically get together once a week, this week we couldn’t find the time. Yet, here we were with an hour to spend while she finished her processing.

When I returned home, I wondered if I could take any more miracles. I decided I would. I took a few deep breaths to allow the expansion of more upliftment. And, indeed, miracles continued.

The next one came from my health insurance company—a matter of significant concern in my coverage turned out to be resolved wildly in my favor. After that, I went to sit in the backyard gazebo and noticed that a few of the hanging flower baskets were bone dry. I wondered if my landlady was out of town, but immediately filled some empty bottles to bring life-nourishing water to the parched plants.

The sweetest miracle of the day had yet to come. As I sat in the gazebo, a bumblebee came to drink from the flowers I’d recently watered. I had a close-up view of the bee sinking into each small blossom to retrieve the nectar, then flying onward. In that awakened moment, I perceived that this gift of water to the plants had a pay-it-forward effect. I experienced my small contribution to the great world chain that begins with each of us and ends in the ocean of unconditional love and mercy.

Any simple act of love with a pure heart literally changes the world. Love first. Miracles follow. In this rhythm, we’re all connected.

An elderly gentleman approached the café table where my friend and I sat in a large, spacious atrium. How old do you think I am? He asked. Go ahead, you won’t insult me. How old do you think I am? My friend and I looked at one another. 68? she guessed Come on, he snapped back playfully. I would say 75, I added, though I thought he might be 80. Next month I’ll be 95 years old.

Thus began an hour-long storytelling session from a former decoder from World War II. Ever seen The Imitation Game? I worked with one of those guys. I’m still classified. Every mental faculty in this man was firing. He’d been to a private school recently to share some of his experiences with high school students. He was supposed to stay for an hour and they kept him for over two.

Albert [not his real name] had survived the Battle of the Bulge. He’d been involved with the Ghost Army—one of the greatest tactical deceptions in history (built by stagehands, he said) that was set up in Calais to draw Hitler’s attention away from Allied forces amassing to attack at Normandy. He told us the story of the man who never was, a fallen British soldier whose family agreed to let his body be dumped out to sea near the coast of Spain with a briefcase full of false information shackled to his wrist. The ruse worked when the German intelligence took the bait and believed an attack would be staged in Greece rather than Sicily.

Albert teared up when he spoke his injured buddies lying on the battlefield, knowing there was no way he could put them back together. He said he wanted the male students in his audience to know there was no shame in men crying.

My friend was the one who’d said yes when Albert asked to join us. I was more protective of our space. Yet the more he spoke, the more riveted I became. Something important—some kind of energy, right around the anniversary of D-Day—passed between us.

Somewhere in the middle of the conversation, he looked at me quite pointedly and said, there’s a voice inside each of us that says yes, no, maybe so. We need to listen to that voice. It’s very important; it’s almost a mystical thing.

Albert told us we would remember this conversation sometime in the future and that we were free to pass along any of his stories. More than his narrative, his presence lingers as I navigate my own inner battles, deceptions and encoded messages… Yes. No. Maybe so.

Anything that catches your eye is actually looking for you.

This is the claim of Dr. Jacob Liberman, a vision scientist who shares a unique understanding of light—that light is invisible, and what we actually perceive as light is brightness.

In a podcast recommended to me by a friend, I listened to Dr. Liberman speak about light guiding our attention. He says he’s learned to live the choiceless life by, in essence, following the light.

Yesterday, I drove north on a tree-lined parkway into the Hudson Valley. I rounded a corner when an image caught my eye and struck my heart at the same time, causing me to exclaim an audible Wow! A golden-yellow convertible was parked by the side of the road in a small, dirt-packed, pull-off area. The driver was nowhere to be seen.

In that moment, I’d been contemplating what it takes to stay open to inner guidance and move through this world deeply trusting what we know to be true. When I saw the convertible, I knew this flash of light as car served as an embodiment of my new and wonderful work in the world. Without the driver present, it appeared to be just waiting for me.

The color combined richness with radiance, reminding me of both material abundance and spiritual gold. With the top down, it was open to the heavens the way a crown chakra can be an entry point for divine light, guidance and truth. It was “convertible”— easily changeable to suit form and function. And it could travel quickly. What a beautiful new vision for this emergent platform of service.

Perhaps the most simple, true, elegant version of my mission is looking for me as much as I am seeking it.

What catches your eye and tell me, what do you see?

I left my doctor’s appointment and headed for a nail salon 30-minutes southeast. As many women know, pedicures are one of the best values in self-care. The chair gives you a massage while someone tends your tired toes, and you walk away feeling more beautiful.

I had two other priority errands that morning—the bank and the post office. I needed to secure a cashier’s check to pay the balance on a business coaching program in which I’d invested, and I wanted to overnight the envelope to its destination.

When I arrived at the mall, I found a rare parking spot in the shade. I gave thanks for this gift on a hot day. I noticed a branch of my bank in the same parking lot. It lit up. I considered going in, yet felt safer transacting my business at my home branch, so I walked towards the mall entrance.

The nail salon was busier than expected, and it would be a 30-minute wait. I left in disappointment deciding I must put my financial priorities first.

It wasn’t until I was driving away that I caught the gift moment. I’d been given a bank branch to take care of the cashier’s check—even time to find a post office—before returning to the salon. I’d missed the opportunity the universe had set up for me! Sigh. I was upset with myself for not following what had lit up, trusting an easier way.

I released that feeling to return to the awakened moment and decided to do something unprecedented. I asked again. Could this be set up for me again, please? I’d been unaware. In the past, I would NEVER have been so bold. I would’ve assumed the missed opportunity was on me, and that I didn’t deserve another set-up. That’s how I treated myself.

What happened next? I arrive at my local bank to find another parking spot in the shade. Inside, a teller is waiting to assist me in a professional and expedient manner. At the post office, I wonder whether to request a signature on the receiving end of my package. I decide if the clerk asks if I want this service, that means signing is wise. He asks, and I say yes. Task completed.

Miraculously, I still have time for a pedicure. I see a salon I’ve never been in before. Front shades block the interior view. But as I walk through the front door, I’m transported into a new world. The space has been designed like a Greek temple, with faux pillars, wall murals of women in pastel colors of peach, pink and sand. The workers seem uncharacteristically happy, and I’m tended right away.

What a shift from self-reproach to self-acceptance. Back in the sweet rhythm of life, abundant gifts flow. Perhaps we can learn to love ourselves first, then love others more.

It is undeniable now, spring in New York. The magenta tulips on my kitchen table blend with the fuchsia azaleas outside my kitchen window. The fountain has been turned back on to aerate the pond. Streets are lined with trees in emergent spring green—a favorite, annual color. Once again, the miracle that life returns to blossom through and around us reminds me of the cycle of nature and the invitation to spiral ever upwards.

This spring, something permanent shifted within. I discovered it yesterday while sitting across from my dear millennial friend and co-worker as we wrote, together, a distillate review of a project for which we’d been program directors. Over his Monte Cristo and my lamb shanks, we shared the mutual recognition that the darkness no longer holds interest for us.

We’d both served often in dark places, experiencing tragedy and trauma, witnessing the suffering of others, facing the places within where fear or frustration, anxiety or overwhelm, grief or loneliness lives. Yet, here we were, in a small town diner of a Hudson River town realizing that this landscape no longer held our curiosity. Compassion, yes. Curiosity, no. It was as if we were coming out of winter for the last time. As if we’d learned to face darkness with hearts as firm as diamonds. We’d learned to bring the Love.

It’s time to serve in the light. Focusing on the darkness in our world only feeds it. We’ve come with a different purpose, and we know it. It’s not denial. It’s free will.

How this shift happened can only be compared to the miracle of spring where there appears to be nothing for a very long time. Then, in a precious revelation, life breaks through its shell, or the surface of the earth, or a hardened consciousness.

Something about our intergenerational collaboration in the spiritual seminar project we just completed broke us both open to next level. Who knows what comes of this. No doubt we’ll meet others who’ve reached the same realization—artists, poets, musicians, bankers, executives, hair stylists, plumbers, teachers, saints. We’ll recognize one another, no matter our age or culture or background, and we’ll take another step together into a God moment.

When I began to explore what other professionals in my field could teach me, I came upon an interesting metaphor. One world-renowned coach said, Focus on bringing the lotus flower within each person you meet out of the mud.

Lotus flowers are considered one of the most beautiful flowers in the world. They’re often a symbol of spiritual unfoldment. And they only grow in mud. Sometimes, we may find ourselves stuck in mud—emotional mud, relationship mud, career mud. Coaches can and do help us get unstuck, allowing for a fuller, more visible emergence of the blossom within.

Yet this needn’t be a practice relegated to coaches, teachers, counselors and inspirational speakers. When we focus on the lotus flower within each person we meet— from listening deeply to a loved one’s story of the day or interacting briefly with a stranger in the street, we call forth Soul’s singular beauty.

There’s a wonderful story of a woman who was working in a mining operation. She had a boss whose behavior and appearance she found very hard to take. He had piercings and tattoos all over his body, and he would overpower anyone who tried to get in his way. She found him so abhorrent that she actually challenged God—show me how you live in this man! Surprisingly, she heard an inner answer in return—through his love for his son.

Shortly thereafter, the woman heard the plight of another contractor in the mine. This man’s young daughter had leukemia since age two, and now she was being given the chance to perform on stage with her favorite rock star. The performance was to take place in the man’s hometown, miles away from his place of employment. Upon hearing the news, the woman emailed her odious boss to ask if her co-worker could at least have a couple of hours off to watch his daughter on TV.

A day or two later, the boss met up with her in the break room. I’m so glad you told me about this man’s situation, he said. Of course he can have the time off. If it were up to me, I’d fly him clear across the country to be there in person. The two then got talking about the important things in life, like family. And sure enough, as the boss began speaking about his son, his manner softened and his eyes began to tear up.

When this deeper truth unfolded like the petals of a flower, the woman realized she’d had no right to judge her boss by appearances. In effect, she’d been paying attention to the mud. Her request to be shown where the lotus lived within him brought its beauty to the surface, forever changing her perspective and opening a way for him to give.

A few months ago, I began a new habit. On Thursday nights around dinnertime, I turn off my computer and my phone. I purposefully disconnect to slow myself down, to calm the incessant mental agitation, and to bring peace to my inner worlds. I might read, or do a puzzle, or draw, or play guitar and sing, but nothing plugged in.

I began this new practice in preparation for Fridays. For many years, Fridays have been a fasting day for me. When I was younger, it was a food fast or partial fast, like just eating dinner. Then it morphed into juice or liquid fasts. Much more frequently now, it’s a mental fast of keeping my thoughts in the highest spiritual place that I can for twenty-four hours.

And while Thursdays have supported Fridays successfully, sometimes this night-before preparation brings a sense of loneliness. I try to lean into the feeling and breathe while I watch myself detach from being electronically fed. This week, I had help from a rainstorm that came on quickly. It had been unseasonably hot and humid all day. Suddenly, a wind seemed to come from out of nowhere, whipping through trees as if in a circular pattern. By the time I got back to the bedroom to close the windows, water had already soaked the rug.

I went downstairs and opened the front door. I stood just inside, allowing the freshness of the wind and water’s spray to enliven me. In a matter of minutes, the downpour stopped and I stepped outside, barefoot in the grass. I saw my neighbor standing in her doorway finishing a phone call. She hung up, then pointed to the lamp that hangs above her front door. There’s a huge bee, she said. She’s not a fan of bees. I went to look and sure enough a bee the size of a horsefly was crawling inside the lamp near the bulb. As I watched, it flew away, and my neighbor carefully stepped outside.

We chatted about the weather, about the theater, about the property on which we live and the opportunity we’d have soon to star gaze from the field once I get my astronomy binoculars a proper tripod. I felt as if I’d stepped back in time into a gentler rhythm when neighbors connected with each other instead of their TVs.

What a peaceful and pleasant moment on an unplugged Thursday night. Real physical presence. The virtual world is such a gift to connect us globally. We get to explore and find our tribe among the peoples of the world. Yet, there’s nothing so fulfilling to me as simple, casual conversation shared amidst the clean, rain-soaked air, barefoot on my front lawn.