Happy Holidays!
Today is Christmas Day and Tim, the boys, and I are at the beach with Tim's family. It has been a different Christmas...warm, sunny, beautiful...and I have loved it. Today after opening presents, we spent a couple hours on the beach chasing Wynter and his cousin Kadin, while River napped at the house. We searched for the most gorgeous shells we could find to take back for Oma (grandma) and I went on a mission to find a whole, intact sand dollar for our sister-in-law, Kripa who couldn't join us this Christmas.
Searching for sand dollars is not an easy feat I soon found out. Well, let me modify that, one can find many pieces of sand dollars scattered all over the beach, but finding a whole sand dollar is not as common for sure. I found myself almost obsessed with it. Once I found one, it was intoxicating...I felt like a genius, marine biologist ;-). Seriously though, it gave me the confidence to know that if I found one I could find more and I did. I found two more, beautiful, whole, intact sand dollars. It was this strange, intense, almost meditative process. Which led me to think about how searching for sand dollars is similar to hooping and finding the moments of pe*A*ce between the hooper and the hoop...and on a greater scheme moments of pe*A*ce in our daily interactions with all of creation. And let me be clear that I am talking about positive pe*A*ce because as I understand it, pe*A*ce can take form in negative rhythm as well.
To clarify, pe*A*ce is a HoopPath term that refers to the rhythmic balance of the hooper and the hoop. As a hooper it is the ultimate goal to achieve pe*A*ce as often as possible and maintain it. However, it is possible to get stuck in a negative pe*A*ce, or rhythmic balance, with another person, your hoop, a lifestyle habit etc. We've all been there...we just need to recognize when it happens and change the current (in hooping, the direction of the hoop...in life the direction of the situation).
I was so excited to hoop on the beach and just contemplate these thoughts. I can think of no better place to hoop than the beach. I was ready for an epic hoop. I began and, well, pe*A*ce...not there so much. I kept hooping and had a few really blissful moments. Then 1/2 hour into my hoop, just as my favorite song started playing, my ipod pooped out. OK, OK, surely I was meant to have a great hooping moment today...what do I do now? I walked back to the house and I changed the current. I knew I wanted to be outside. I had told myself I would start running again in the new year...why wait? Running on the beach is also amazingly blissful. And so the current changed and my "epic" hoop turned into a beautiful run on the beach. All this because of my search for a sand dollar.
