The Miracle in the Road Less Traveled

Almost three years ago—my world flipped. It flipped over a miracle. The miracle resided in the duality that exists between the heart and the mind. My mind could make no sense of what was going on at the time, but my heart somehow understood everything. This happened on the day my brother died. Before my mind knew that he was gone from this world, my heart sensed bliss and a soaring and freedom that sent me dancing and twirling about the house as the rays of the morning sun were doing the same. I was just ready for the “big move” to Portland, Oregon, expecting my brother to arrive to help me pack up and drive together to a new home a thousand miles away. Piles of boxes, both full and empty, were the trees of my enchanted forest this morning in which I spiraled about. As a beautiful piece of music played, my body caught the beat. The essential message in a dance that danced me, not the other way round. I could not have known it at the time but this unfettered reality, this 'home' that my heart knew and my body moved to—this was the soaring that my brother was now experiencing. He was free.
It wasn't until a couple of days later as my three children and I were flying home, that it all came together for me. We were in the Denver airport awaiting our connecting flight, communing with the rest of the family via a conference call on our cell phones as my brother was being cremated. My dad had pulled the CD from my brother's car. So in our silence, connected as one, we all listened to his music. It was muffled, as you can imagine, being in a busy airport, on a cell phone and on speaker phone ... but then recognition registered as I strained to hear what was playing. My mind heard what was playing, and in that moment I was aware, as never before, how the heart rules. The heart is the Master. The mind has the power to create and project what it thinks it knows, but the heart just knows. It is pure. It is truth! The song playing from my brother’s CD was the same song I was dancing and spinning to that morning, as if I had wings.