Zone – Flow

Late Sunday afternoon – almost dark. The last daylight sparkles on the waves and two surfers dance their magic on the waves. I’m not a surfer – oh how I long for their freedom. One rides a wave and at its end flips into the air – cartwheeling back into the bubbling foam. The other rides a tube, a small cousin of Hawaiian giants – but does so with grace. With darkness descending they come ashore – riding waves to the edge of the beach and then turn to wave farewell to their stage and their moment of magic. I watch in awe.

Salmon skin cooked in oil and brine – the chef, my friend, enjoying his kitchen space. The pumpkin, the broccoli, the potato bake mingle beautifully with the salmon, smooth on the palate as was the white wine. Good food, good company, breaking bread and story shared – what more can we ask of life?

My good friend Greg speaks of being ‘in your zone – in your flow’! A state of being. Focussed. Clear headed. Distractions blocked – not by will but by an energy to create your magic.

Its Valentine Holmes coming into the back line against the Broncos, its Adam Gilchrist making friends with the boundary and its Maggie Beer making a fry pan sizzle. It’s Pavarotti and Nessun Dorma, its Freddie Mercury and Bohemian Rhapsody, its Da Vinci and the Sistine Chapel. My sister in law is brilliant with young children. Both of my brothers are master story tellers. My nephew writes children’s stories and my mother Zena made picking up the phone to call some lonely elderly person an art form. But it is also each and every one of us when we trust ourselves, when we allow our passion to flow and when we dance or sing or build or create some magic in all its forms that only we can create – no matter how small or seemingly unimportant.

We all have OUR zone space: for some its the kitchen, some keyboard or strings, some the art palette and some the majesty of dance. Some teach and the students are in awe, some reach for a scalpel and a healing beyond logic occurs while some reach for the hand of the elderly, bath the rejected or share a coffee with those with neither kin or home. We all have our space. We all have that space which is uniquely ours. In this space we come alive. In this space we reach down and bring forth magic in word or deed, dream or outcome.

When you are in your zone, when you are in flow – time stands still. It is truly and deeply YOU. You create, you trust, you believe in that mysterious energy within you that seeks to express something that is uniquely and wonderfully you. In flow – you are truly and deeply present. In flow – you are the master and the outcome the masterclass. Your flow is YOUR contribution to the Universe – something that only you can gift it with.

Silence the nay-sayers who lament, “No, not me!” You just have not looked. You just have not trusted. You just have not, with a small amount of courage, let go of the shoreline and ridden the wave that only you can ride.