Deliberate Creation is about deliberately choosing those experiences you make your truths.

Abraham Hicks

I love this quote. I have been challenged to think more since Emily died about what I want my truths to be, and if I am willing to shift my beliefs. I always felt that spirit existed, that we live beyond our earthly realm. I’m not an atheist by a long stretch, and this is a great relief, because I choose to believe that Emily is here with me as I write this, that she is here giving me purpose and resilience and, yes, even joy.

One of the first things I do upon waking up each morning is ask Emily to bring me serendipity in my day: blessings that I do not plan, but that appear. I don’t know why I was so led to this particular asking rather than to give me strength or signs…but I was. Every single day, such has happened – something serendipitous and wonderful, often many things. Perhaps those things have always happened, and I haven’t been in the habit of noticing and appreciating; or this act of allowing, this conscious asking of my Emily/the universe/God/my spirit guides/angels – however any one chooses to name or believe it – has helped to make it so. I have opened myself up to receiving goodness and to noticing it.

In my morning meditations, I also ask for blessings and to be a blessing. Another belief that I choose is that one does not come without the other. I am richly blessed by so many people: dear friends and even strangers, who pay me kindnesses unwarranted; I am also blessed by where I live – I had forgotten in the last long while that such splendour existed! My friend Tanya commented on my FB page after posting that I had seen Margaret Atwood here in the Comox Valley and also served as MC for the ‘Rock and Roll Revival’ in the same venue the week before, “You have found where you belong.”

Indeed, I have. Another belief that I had, but that may be shifting, is that wherever I was with family, that was home. But this Singing Sands little haven, nestled beside the beach? Let me say, I have never felt more at home than I feel here. When I wake up and see my fern-filled gully and the red cedars and fir trees, when I hear the sea lions barking in the distance and the heron interaction above me – I feel so deeply and satisfyingly at home. When I see my peas and beans popping out of the soil and my tomatoes reaching up to the sun and my surprise poppies that I thought were weeds and nearly pulled up several times, I am so profoundly satisfied, Contrary to most people, I’m not sure I actually realised home could be a place until now. A life of vagabonding and adventure had me in its grips and I would never trade any of that. But to now have a place to nest, to become fully Leah: the gardener, the ocean walker, the writer, the lady in her 60th decade (!) wearing jeans and knit sweaters and Blundstones (and kimonos when it warms up): this FEELS like me.

I believe I have found a shelter that suits me. I believe Emily has not only led me here, but IS here. I believe that my openness to her spirit and the universe (or whatever you choose to call it, if you choose at all), is what is bringing me my peace and purpose along with untold blessings: the new friends, my plants, the all-encompassing nature, my sweet, quirky house, my even-deeper and richly-melding relationship with my Don, my Moondog, seeing Charlotte so often – us going there and her ferrying here: each of these is precious and I do not take any of them for granted.

As I sip my coffee in the morning sunshine (Finally!) in my very own study, with the cozy tan chair from Habitat for Humanity, my feet resting on the ottoman from Beijing, wrapped in the blanket from Kristi, gazing at the jade plant in the pottery planter I bought myself for my birthday as a “let’s make this Leah’s Lair, something welcoming and wonderful – a place you want to retreat to,” – all of this I have brought about because of gratitude, because I am willing to move forward and upward, because serendipity has gifted me these things. All of this I believe.

You can believe whatever you want. Isn’t that wonderful? All I can say is that what I am choosing to believe is bringing me untold blessings, so I am going to stick with it.

I wonder what serendipity shall befall me today…