“Nothing, nothing, nothing is serious.” Byron Katie

The tire fell off the canoe trailer en route to our wilderness canoe retreat destination. I heard a snap as the axle gave way, felt an abrupt drag as the trailer hit the dirt road and watched in surprised awe as the back tire rolled on by me into the woods. It was a rapid, surreal happening, to say the least!

There are two ways to deal with this, one is with stress and panic and the other is with calm clarity. One way hurts while the other doesn’t, with the situation remaining the same.

At first glance, it looked like an extremely challenging situation logistically. How do we get to our destination as planned and even more interesting, how are we going to get everything and everyone back home? It could have been a confidence crisis for the clients already on the eager and anxious side, entering a new experience. It also was not exactly the way I wanted to instill a sense of trust on day one into the wild with this guide!

The old, familiar reactive way of being brings fear and projection and sounds like, “Something is terribly wrong. They won’t feel safe with me now…" and on and on the mind travels.

Something took over that was beyond a small mind and small thinking. I experienced a kindness that looked like a flow of love and service that could not have been orchestrated by the best contingency planner. With traffic blocked on this one lane access road, people began to gather from their vehicles and ask how they could help. We all heaved on the trailer and moved it out of the way. Strangers began untying the canoes and loading them onto their own cars generously offering to complete our transport. Within a half hour, we had all the women and equipment back on track and the tow truck was on the way to get the trailer off to repairs. It was like witnessing a magic act. I noticed I was smiling and amused with the beautiful flow of it all.

Periodically my mind would travel to the what if’s, the now what’s, and the should have’s as they arose. The residual ways of the old paradigm passed by as I would come back to the kindness all around in this perfect moment in this perfect universe unfolding before me.

More pearls became apparent. I could see how it was the perfect time and place for a broken axle on this quiet dirt road. The mechanic later said we were very fortunate that it happened at such a slow speed. I got a better axle that is more appropriate for the load and the varied terrain. We all got to witness human kindness without a motive other than to serve another. It was a feeling of being supported, being held by something great and beyond words.

Jen Deraspe, owner of Nurture Through Nature, is a holistic retreat facilitator and practitioner of The Work of Byron Katie. She lives off the grid on Pleasant Mountain in Denmark, Maine. www.ntnreats.com, (207) 452-2929.