*

“Labour and rest, work and ease,
the busy hand, and then the skilled thought:
this blending of opposites
is the secret
of the joy of living.”**

I cannot design the gift.  Somehow it comes to me from beyond.  It’s nature is non-obvious.

I may have been curious about this, learned about that, developed this skill, brought them all together as talents – these are things which are obvious to me, in that I’m conscious of choosing and pursuing them.  But they are not the gift.

The gift comes to me – I can only be open to embrace what has found me.  Any pride or greed on my part blocks the gift;  I am only able to embrace it through humility and gratitude.

‘I would like to speak of gratitude as a labour undertaken by the soul to effect the transformation after a gift has been received.  Between the time a gift comes to us and the time we pass it along, we suffer gratitude.’^

Now it changes me, and I must change because only a bigger me will be able to actualise the gift, to pass the gift on.

Your gift is non-obvious.  This is because it is unique, more than the sum of your parts.  My call, as a dreamwhisperer is the joy of listening for your gift.

(*You can get a high resolution copy of today’s cartoon to colour in yourself.  Just send a request to gb@geoffreybaines.com.)
(**From Alistair Maclean’s Hebridean Altars.)
(^From Lewis Hyde’s The Gift.)