Hello friends,
Do you ever feel like life is a never-ending construction project? For me, there can be a sense that I’m never quite finished: as soon as I reach the end of a phase, I’m thinking ahead to the next one. It’s not often that I turn back to look at how far I’ve come and consider where it might be taking me.
This week’s Flag Oracle reading offers one card where I turned around on the trail to capture the beauty of what was behind me, and another where I contemplated what was ahead.
DAY
The Construction Zone flag has no hidden meaning; it was designed to resemble a street construction barricade. At the end of a hike seven months into a yearlong project, I turned to hang it between a gate of trees on the ridge overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the town of Bolinas below. With the wind on my face and the flag flapping in the breeze, that sublime moment felt like a celebration of everything I had been working toward with the flag project.
What have you been constructing? It may or may not be an actual thing; it could be your efforts to improve communications with a person or a group, parent a child, or learn something new.
Take a moment to survey the effect of your efforts. Appreciate how far you’ve come, and everything you did to get there. The sacrifices and self-discipline have surely made a difference.
NIGHT
At the threshold between day and night, the Perfectly Imperfect flag is placed as a gateway to the wide expanse of the unknown, an infinite ocean view that will soon turn dark and starry. The setting sun casts leafy shadows upon the flag, indicating more beautiful foliage on the other side.
In the night position for this reading, the Threshold card asks us to look at how the experiences we have been constructing have remade us. When we set out to do something, we do not know what lessons we will learn that will make us a different person from the one who started the project. The Perfectly Imperfect flag reminds us that even if the result may not have been exactly what we expected, it turned out perfectly.
Taking down a street construction barricade is like crossing a threshold to smooth driving. In the same way, your efforts can bring you to a marvelous threshold as one who is remade into a person who has done that thing, however imperfectly.
May you appreciate the sublime gifts of the experiences you have constructed.
May you be empowered to cross the threshold of a new way of being your perfectly imperfect self.
Sometimes the sublime is right in front of you
The experiences we choose for ourselves add up, bringing us to thresholds we may not have expected. I didn’t know how writing this newsletter would change me—how it would fill me with a sense of purpose to know that people look forward to receiving my writing and pictures every week. For me, perhaps the threshold was one of self-belief; I am grateful for your attention in helping me cross it.
May you have a sublime experience this week!
Love,
Lee Ann
So encouraging! I love how you mark your progress with flags out there in the wilds. A true heroine's journey. xo