Leap and the Net Will Appear
03/02/19 Filed in: Manifestation
I love the quote by John Burroughs, "Leap and the net will appear." Have I found it to be true in my own life? Absolutely. But does that mean that every time I take a leap, or embark on a grand new adventure, that I proceed with calm, clarity and trust? Not always!
I don't think of myself as a very daring person, and for the most part, I live a very peaceful and quiet life. Yet, when I look back, at least once every decade, I've made major life changes that required a great deal of courage and a willingness to risk.
Sometimes these shifts and changes emerged out of extreme pain and loss: a divorce, a death or some other unforeseen event which forced an inner reshaping and a coming to know myself in new and deeper ways. But other times, they might have arisen because of an idea, an impulse, an aha moment, an epiphany.
Years ago, I had a moment when a clear, spontaneous vision came to me. I would take a year's sabbatical and go to live in France. How liberating, how exciting! The problem was that I knew no one there, my French was extremely rusty, and to make it financially viable, I would need to rent out my home and find a place to house sit there. Daunting? Yes, but the passion I felt burning within galvanized me.
I set to work getting my house ready, applied for a visa, a labor intensive endeavor, and went about finding a place to house sit, a task made much more difficult because I had no access to the internet. Well, at long last my visa request was approved and I had a departure date. I purchased an inexpensive round trip plane ticket, but nothing else had fallen into place!
I would lay in bed at night, my body rigid with anxiety, worry and fear. Finally, I asked myself what was the very worst thing that could happen. What if I simply couldn't pull it off? What if I had to lose face, admit failure and let go of my dream? It certainly would be better, I told myself in a moment of dark humor, than dying of a heart attack.
I had been putting out feelers for the ideal renter and a place to stay in France for months, and though I was in the process of making a leap, until then, I was still hanging on for dear life. Finally, I decided to let go of it all, and went to visit my mother in Florida for a week.
I had asked the Universe for the perfect renter and a place to housesit, replete with a car and a community. And very shortly after I returned, it all did fall into place. I leapt, was able to let go of the outcome and the net really did appear.
Was I fearful as I packed to leave, did I wonder if I'd made the right choice, did I second guess my decision before my departure? Yes. But, that spring, bulging suitcases in tow, I boarded a plane to Paris and took a train west into live among the bucolic cow pastures and apple orchards of Normandy.
What awaited me was a three story stone house which sat in the middle of a field and four cats I was to care for. Also, a white Citroen van left for my use was parked in the driveway. The owners' friends, a mixture of French natives and British expatriates, took me under their wing, so soon I had friends and a community. And because I chose to leap, what unfolded that spring turned out to be one of the most enriching, most heart opening, most memorable experiences of my life.