Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible.  
Anonymous

During the summer I began writing this book children were digging in the sand on a remote beach not far from where I was working. They uncovered a smooth white bone that turned out to be a part of the head of a whale. Everyone thought the whale probably washed ashore during one of those mythic Cape Cod hurricanes, maybe forty years before. Scientists came to do carbon testing. They determined the skeleton was at least five hundred years old! The head weighed four hundred pounds! Sand, blown by the wind over centuries, covered – and then uncovered – this leviathan that for generations was waiting to be revealed.

This was during the time I was reviewing my past and the decisions I had made; and the decisions I had not made. I was untethered, adrift in the cosmos. There were no dreams coming true; no fairytale endings. In the kingdom of myself everything was breaking down.

A close friend in Ireland wrote to say she had a dream about me: I was rising up out of the ocean swimming from a drifting boat to shore. I hoped it was an auspicious dream. I wanted to rise to the surface and emerge from my gloom and from feeling sorry for myself.

Each day I was pushing myself to do everything I believe in and know can help me believe in myself. I was journaling; I was swimming. I was keeping up my practice. I was working on this book. I was reading the ‘advice’ and the stories that I was writing for my possible readers. Except the reader was me!

During that troubled time, nothing helped me more than writing and rewriting, reading and rereading, what is on these pages. This book is about dark holes – whatever and wherever they are – and how to dig out of them. My shovels are crafted from the stories passed on by teachers and guides during years of listening.

Pain is the constant chaperone of living. It is public and private. Everyone I know has it: back pain, shoulder pain, hip pain, arthritis pain, headaches, heartaches and loss. We cannot always change this but there are ways to live with courage. I got the hang of being still. It was a stillness that does not depend on what happens. I let a new wind blow in without knocking me over.

Spend time on any beach. Shifting sands are real. The beach where I live in the summer has gone from being covered with sand to being covered with rocks and is now morphing again to sand. Think of yourself as that beach. Who knows what will be revealed over time that for the moment is hidden? It could be a whale of a thing!