Perseverance

As readers of this blog might remember, where I live in the southwest has been in severe drought conditions for about a year now.  We didn’t have any snow at all last winter.  That is why it has been so nice that with a shift in the weather patterns, at least for now, we have had several snow falls in the past 6 weeks or so. 

One of my favorite winter activities is to go snowshoeing.  The area where I go to do this is in the national forest about 10 miles north of where I live.  Recently, the local bike club got permission to groom some of the trails for snow bike use.  To do this, they drag a very heavy square block behind a snowmobile to flatten out the trail.  That also makes it perfect for snowshoeing and cross country skiing.  Last week, I was able to snowshoe for the first time this season, and it was delightful. The groomed trails made for very easy going. 

Then we had about 8 inches of snow in that area over the weekend.  More good stuff!  So yesterday, I went up there again, and proceeded along my regular route.  No problem at the start, as the day before, someone had regroomed what turned out to be only the beginning part of the trail.  When I came to a fork in the trail, the groomed part went to the left, and only a track made by a cross country skier proceeded to the right, which is the way I always go.  I thought, no problem, as I had often walked in those kinds of tracks before.  It is a little harder because they are so narrow, but not impossible.

About 2/3 the way around this big loop trail, the cross country tracks veered off to the right, going in a direction that I was not familiar with.  Time to make a choice.  Do I continue on forward breaking a trail on the snowed over previously groomed trail, or do I follow the way that the skier had gone, not knowing where it would lead?  I chose to continue in the direction I was familiar with. 

As you might expect, things started to go downhill from there.  I was literally breaking a new trail in snow that was heavy and wet because the temperature had warmed up.  The snow had packed around my boots and snowshoes, and it was becoming a struggle just to lift up my feet.  Images of disaster started to run through my mind.  What if I stepped off the trail and fell into a snow hole?  Who would find me, and would I resemble a frozen Popsicle when they did?  Fortunately, I was confident that I was staying on the path that I was familiar with, so the only thing to do was to persevere and move forward. 

Luckily, towards the end of the loop, someone had ridden the trail on a snowmobile, so it was packed down and easy to snowshoe on once again until I got back to the parking lot.  Whew! 

As I was nearing the end of my trek, I started looking at the situation as an analogy for the energetic description of the year 2019 that I spoke about during my workshop last Saturday entitled “Setting your Energetic Template for 2019”.  2019 will probably start out in a predictable and fairly smooth manner, just like the start of my trek.  Then a choice will be presented.  Do I go left on the easy but longer route, or right on the more difficult and predictable route.  Neither one is right or wrong, either.  And then, will my path disappear all together forcing me to expend much energy while forging a new route?   At the last minute, will an easier way be presented to save the day?  Rescued at last! 

The theme for 2019 is that we all will have to put in a lot of hard work with whatever we are doing.  In other words, we need to stick to it and persevere.  I described it as kind of a grind, and not necessarily any fun.  We will be building up our energetic muscles to prepare for 2020 and whatever that will bring. 

Remember that even if hard work is required, we can have fun at the same time.  We can also glide through our difficulties and have gratitude and appreciation for whatever life presents to us.  If you are interested in listening to last Saturday’s workshop, I will be posting when that is available for purchase from Rise Multiversity.