......in your element

Yogis,

The construction on our small humble hilly street continued throughout the month of May. After months we have become accustomed to the consistent deep rumble and other times earth rocking vibrations of the oversized dump trucks and jackhammers. One of the crew even joked that he is now getting his mail delivered here. 

One morning I glanced out the front window to a scene of 10 men in hardhats working on a curb across the street being directed by my neighbor.  They were all still and listening as she pointed and spoke. Even with her back facing me there was no mistaking that at that moment she was in charge.  An engineer by training and an action-oriented organizer by nature she looked at ease.  I snapped a picture and texted it to her with the comment ‘in your element’.  She shot back that she was a foreman wanna be. Yes! She would be a perfect foreman.

This week my good friend was staying with me for her annual return trip to the ‘hood’. She occupied that same house across the street for twenty years.  While sharing a story about visiting her friend’s incredible garden in Maui she made the remark that as her friend is leading you through her lush tangle of plants, she is ‘in her element’.  By the description alone I could feel it.

Flashback to a couple of weeks ago in my first Medicinal Gardening workshop where I shared how to create a garden that becomes your own medicine chest. I was teaching, introducing the plants and sharing the healing potential right under our feet while the two hours flew by. Tired, sweaty and dirty, I couldn’t have been happier. I realized that I was ‘in my element’.  It took so many of my loves and rolled them neatly into one package.

What is your element?  Where is it or what are you doing when time has no meaning, the body is at ease and you feel complete? Where your soul sings.  Where that quiet inner voice shrieks ‘Yes!’ 

When I was offered the retirement package from Xerox, that inner voice could no longer be quieted. Even though working there only five more years would have made everything much more secure, the scary leap was one that my heart had to take. Waiting wasn’t an option.

Being ‘in your element’ is the nourishment for your soul.  It is where your unique gifts come alive.  It feels simple, invokes passion and will indeed take you where you need to go. It is your dharma – the reason you are here. 

But it’s not only in employment. You want to find ‘your element’ in your social group. Finding your tribe. Those others who connect with you at the soul level.  Who feed you. Seek out ‘your element’ in where you live, the house you choose, your hobbies and sometimes even in who you consider your family. How will you know?  You feel it.

Moments are precious. Why waste them being out of sync? Be ‘in your element’ and live vividly.

Living in my element,

SARAH