The Joy of Listening to Your Inner Voice

This morning I was a running couple hours late, so when my heart spoke the request to go for a walk on the beach, I baulked. I had many excuses, primarily the lack of time remaining in the morning for,what I believed, I needed to do today.  Also, I was very hungry and the sun was already too high to be outdoors. I ignored and resisted.

The voice was not pacified and quickly had urgency about it. It spoke to heart of the need, for me not to ignore it. It then said, “Go now!” I did, I dropped my narrow focus upon my list of “to dos,” watering the potted plants on the deck and eating. On went my flip flops; my heart and I, now in agreement, headed to the beach.

There, as I was taking off my sandals, (yes!) I overheard a woman speaking to a man about seeing something in the ocean. The man, disinterested, moved on; I plunged my bare feet into the warm sand and walked down the dune slope to where the woman sat on a bench. Interested, I inquired as to what she had seen. She pointed offshore where she exclaimed she had sighted a whale. Sure enough, the water blew, unmistakably, out of a whale air hole. We watched more periodic blows and were even blessed with the sighting of her slippery, black back swelling to the surface and then disappearing below. More air blows as she headed south; and then she reached her massive head up out of the water, opened her mouth, and revealed a white chin of… not sure, possibly a Humpback? The show was not over; closer to the shoreline a large pod of dolphins swam by. Their dark crescent shaped bodies revealing fin after fin after fin; feeding as they, too, headed southward.

Whenever I listen to that little voice I receive what my heart truly longs for. The key is to honor it, to trust in the greater knowing of the quiet voice and then, to act upon it. For in doing so we become blessed, as I was, by the exerience of an unforeseen event that brings inspiration and beauty into our lives.