Riding The Wave - Grayslake Photographer and Writer

This week we celebrated our 12 year anniversary.  The storyboard below contains an image captured during that year of marriage (I included our most recent pic so there are 13 images).

This week I had also been listening to a talk by D. Bowling a lawyer and mediator for the US District Court for Northern California, author of "Bringing Peace Into the Room".  I finally finished listening to the whole talk this morning.
I am paraphrasing:

   Life is a deep paradox.  Everything we know has an opposite.  That is why life has its up and downs you can't have the ups without the downs.  In the ups we feel connected, filled with awe and love.  In the downs we feel disconnected, separate, and lost.  It is in the space of loss and disconnect that we lose our presence and negative thoughts arise.  We often get stuck here in our relationships.  'Why didn't they do this or that.'  'Don't they know how important I am.' ... we lose connection.  
Instead what we must do is to hold both the ups and the downs, that is how we are able to sustain our connection over time.  Being able to see disconnect and awe as the same wave.  The paradox is, the flow of life, that is the way life is up and down.    When we ride the wave of connection and awe; disconnection and separation without resistance or clinging to either one we are able to allow the great wonders of life to happen.  

He ends the talk with this:

     There were several low points in my life.  One of the lowest points where I felt completely disconnected was when I had lost my marriage of 25 years and I had gotten my dream job but it was totally not what I had expected.  My friend asked me to go to this conference with him.  I could barely get out of bed let alone jump on a plane to go to a conference.  I told him NO.  He insisted and I insisted that I wasn't going.  Then a plane ticket appeared in the mail.  I got on this small plane realizing that most of the people on the plane were headed to the same conference.  On the plane in the seat right in front of me I heard the most mesmerizing voice I had ever heard.  A few years later she became my wife and she is the reason why I do what I do.  

It's been a wonderful ride thus far.... here's to riding out more ups and downs together allowing life's great wonders to happen!