A long time ago, a robin’s egg fell to the deck, looking for all its worth like a piece of the sky had drifted down to rest on the cedar boards. It sat in a dish on the altar for a few years and later became the resting support for incense sticks, itself resting in sand brought home from a North Carolina beach. The blue faded and the shell took on the imprint of burn from an incense stick. It sat faithfully for a decade or more just doing what it was never intended to do yet doing it wholeheartedly.

Then one day it met a puppy and the shell cracked, cracked some more when it was being carried to safety – although once broken could there be any safety. And there in a plate used for sumi-e ink, it met a kitten who in its joyousness opened it totally to reveal all that it had been, all that it possibly could have been and profoundly exactly what it was in that very moment.

There is so much that we are intended for, so much that is intended for us. It begins however with one and only one intentional possibility: to become what we are. Bird, fish, human. Only after that is fulfilled can we speak of the nuances and ephemeral things-to-become.

And sometimes, we do not, cannot become for so many reasons beyond our ken and control. In those times, we may be given some other role, some other possibility which will do, will have to do for this lifetime. How to do that wholeheartedly? How to rest in that pocket of sand and support the burnt offerings of something beyond our perception?

How to sit without the hope that some intense curiousity or vibrant joy will infiltrate, breaking our shell, opening us. If only to see that what we were intended for is no longer possible. And yet, what we are is immense in its possibilities.