universe provides

Gara saves the day!

Two Fridays ago, I was in a daze as I wondered the streets of Barcelona. I had just left the Pyrenean mountain yoga center, Casa Cuadrau, after 5 weeks of intensely beautiful retreat and teaching whilst processing the end of a relationship within close proximity of the other.

I was allowing my friends to lead me. Tashi suggested taking the Metro to Paral'lel, on a hunch that it was close to the beach. Helen was trying to contact Pablo another friend who she planned to stay with. The idea was to find a cafe with wifi, have food, land somehow. 

Emotionally vacuous, I decided to just follow and wait until we were settled down somewhere before contacting my Spanish friend Gara who I planned to stay with till Wednesday.

Hauling luggage in the hot summer sun on some street near the Paral'lel metro station, there was no beach--as far as we could see--and no suitable cafes with vegetarian options. We turned on a random street, hoping to head more into the older part of the city. My heart was sinking, I started to despair. I'd traded the pristine though painful mountain landscape for urban chaos. What was I doing? How did I get here? Had I made the right decision leaving the mountains? The feelings of being lost and aimless started to permeate my emotional numbness. The gravity of the change was once again weighing on me. 

Then, just at that moment, as I trailed behind my friends, weighed down by my personal baggage, I saw quite to my own disbelief a familiar face, blond curls a top an angel on a bicycle. Stunned I called out, "Gara!?"

The very friend who I was going to stay with was at that very moment cycling past us! She stopped and sweetly smiled, welcoming us to Barcelona. She said how she was just at that moment thinking about me and wondering how we were going to get in touch, how she was herself taking an unusual route to the market as she thought about what she might cook for me. And would we like to come to her house now, take showers, rest up and eat a nice home cooked lunch? The three of us, stunned at the turn of events, nodded with enthusiasm and gratefulness!

Coincidence? Good luck? A divine act of co-creation? The Universe giving us a break or imparting an important message?

For me, moments such as these are pregnant with purpose. How such a sequence of events can lead 4 people down one obscure little street just at that exact moment? How amazing and yet absolutely perfect?

As we walked to Gara's flat, quite close to where we met, Tashi and I marveled at the might of manifestation. How we drew each other into that moment, with our thoughts and intentions, wild guesses and intuitions, creating together this moment of saving grace. The law of attraction at play. 

With one accidental meeting, I was pulled away from the cliff edge that I was tottering over. I was rescued. And all of us saved from wandering an unfamiliar city. 

We mused at how there were innumerable happy and unhappy coincidences which had brought us to this point. Should we be surprised? Awed? Or simply grateful that we live in a wondrous and mysterious world that provides exactly what we need at any given moment. Sometimes we don't recognize this. Other times we reject it so vehemently because we don't like what it gives. Then there are moments when the signs, the blessings are just so clear.

Amazing lunchtime spread that Gara put
together for us that afternoon.

Moments like these remind us that the world works in our favor. That it supports the right decisions, that it gives us feedback when we are on the wrong road or the right track. 

I had asked a question. I was doubting myself and feeling lost. And the universe answered. I was not alone. I was exactly where I needed to be. Even with the torment within, the trauma of loss, the world was telling me I wasn't lost but rather moving in the right direction.

These are the moments we are asked to surrender, to take that leap into the unknown, to trust that everything is really perfect.