New Phase...

New moon over the Jemez Mountains, shot near Santa Fe, NM, July 2012

Portal de Santa Fe, July 2012

I shot this brand-new moon a little over three weeks ago during my trip to Santa Fe to hand-deliver my mental health counseling licensure application. I spent a few weeks compiling all the necessary information and supporting documentation, and carefully completing the form to ensure quick processing and approval. I hand-delivered it to ensure its receipt a week ahead of the usual scheduled monthly review. I confirmed with the clerk that everything was in order, that I was well ahead of the deadline, and that, assuming I met all criteria (and I'd triple-checked that I did), I would receive my license to practice therapy within two to three weeks.

The new moon I saw that evening is now in its late phase, slipping back toward the sun and a new phase. Much to my dismay I found out last week that the application has been needlessly delayed (I won't go into why; that could blacklist me permanently), which automatically delays me in starting to make a living in my new career for another month. Another month of living on sporadic jewelry sales, student loans, and various other forms of assistance, while nearly four years of diligent coursework and clinical preparation simmer away in my head as I sit on my hands and wait to get to work.

A friend asked me to look for the gift in this delay. What gift?? But she's right in that my perception shapes my response, and I can consciously choose to find or create the gift here. Paradoxically, the delay is itself the gift. It gives me more time with my kids as they settle into the new school year (they started last week -- how crazy-early is that??), more time to develop a new routine for us all, more time to figure out how to help my son work through some pretty serious challenges that he's been struggling with for a while now.

The delay also gives me a moment to pause, to consider what I've accomplished, and to imagine the possibilities ahead. Recently I read something to the effect of "imagine without expectation" (can't remember the source) and recalled the following:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
  -T.S. Eliot, "The Four Quartets"

Pause, be still, and wait without hope -- not hopeless, just in faith. This, I can do.