At the end of our Munay-Ki workshop in Rotterdam last weekend, Chantal the organizer, shared one of the messages she had received from the three days we had spent together: “The quality of our experience can shift,” she said, “simply by changing our perspective.”

And of course, it is much easier to change our perspective, than to change a situation that is outside our control. After the workshop ended, Chantal and I were sharing how perfectly it turned out. Even the things that were not going so well at first turned out to be perfect, as obstacles and frustrations became gateways to healing and transformation. The weather turned warm and sunny when I arrived in the Netherlands, so we decided to do the workshop in a beautiful park in the middle of downtown Rotterdam. It was so special to be surrounded and supported by Mother Nature as we worked with the elements and shared the rites.

On Sunday we gathered at 5am by the edge of the Lake to await the sunrise. It was cold and cloudy. Wayra, the wind blew strong and hard with no sun in sight, hidden by the clouds. So we made a fire and gathered in a tight circle around it. Although the weather was not what I wished for, our work with the Fire element and the last three rites was deep and profound. Perfect, I thought.

Then it occurred to me that everything is perfect – all the time – everything is perfect. That doesn’t mean it is always what we like, what we want, what we hope for yet a life viewed from this perspective invites us into the present moment where all manner of poignant beauty and possibility awaits us.

By recognizing the perfection in every circumstance, we can ACCEPT the situation as it is. By doing so we enter into a sense of freedom, released from the frustration of wishing it to be otherwise, we can become still, hyper present to the moment. From that point possibilities exist that were hidden before. As our perspective shifts, we exist between worlds where magic abounds, where impossibilities become possible, where the circumstance can become more and better than what we’d hoped for.

Almost two years ago my husband Christer and I traveled from our home in Peru to the States for a family reunion. The day after we arrived, Christer woke up not feeling well. As we got ready to go out, he said he couldn’t breathe. I called an ambulance. On the way to the hospital his heart stopped beating. It turned out he had a blood clot in his lung that stopped his heart. Although the ER staff revived him six times over the next 40 minutes, his brain was deprived of sufficient oxygen. He was 12 days in the ICU in a semi coma. He was on a ventilator to assist his breathing. He recognized my voice and could blink his eyes as a way to communicate with me.

It was certainly not the holiday we planned or hoped for. Christer and I had met only four years before in a magical fairy-tale way where the prince and princess were destined to live happily ever after in paradise. Not to say our relationship didn’t have its challenges but we saw them as opportunities to heal and grow into our better selves. How could it all be ending just as we were getting started?

Yet those days with him in the hospital were profoundly beautiful and full of love. The most unconditionally loving thing I ever did was to help Christer pass over. It was then that I really understood how shifting your perspective on a situation, changes your experience of it. When the worse thing you can imagine can also be one of the most beautiful experiences of your life, then you have the key to ultimate freedom.

So now when I say everything is perfect, I really know it to be so. The good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful – all perfect- like the changes of the seasons and the flowers that bloom after the rain. It is a matter of perspective. Trust the perfection to take you into the present where the magic of life abounds.

June 11, 2013