Trust

Kim and I worked on refinishing Lois' teak table and chairs. We're hoping that this effort finally gets rid of the mold situation. It's been a two day process of bleaching the surface of the table and chairs, working some steel wool over the surfaces, and then getting some tung oil on the pieces. The project has been a real big lesson in following one's intuition.

Yesterday we finished the bleaching and steel wool scouring part and planned on letting the tables fully dry over night. Just before bed, Kim asks me if we should cover the table to keep any moisture off. I tell her I didn't think we needed to do it and that actually putting something like a towel over the pieces will actually get them wetter if the towels get wet from the evening moisture. We wake up this morning to find the table, chairs and extension sleeves wet with dew. A swing and a miss--strike one for me. Kim calls my cousin, a woodworker, and he tells her, "Yes you should have covered all of it."

We let all the pieces dry in the morning sun and did a fast work over with some steel wool. Luckily, the wood didn't swell up from the moisture. The next phase was putting on the tung oil. Simple enough, I thought. Kim asks me, "Do you think we should work on the sleeves first? Just in case we make a mistake, it's not a major part of the table."

"Nah! Let's just do the table first." I read the can of tung oil and it seemed pretty easy.
1. Apply a generous coat of tung oil.
2. In 5 to 10 minutes buff the surface with a lint free cloth.
How simple is that? The tung oil went on so smoothly leaving a shiny gloss on the surface of the table. I could feel the satisfaction of a real woodworker making dry, thirsty wood come to life. Our rookie mistake was that we were working out in the sun and the tung oil began to dry faster than the 5 to 10 minutes recommended on the can. So, when we started buffing the surface the tung oil gummed up on us, leaving little lumpy areas on certain spots. A swing and a miss--strike two. The lumps can only be seen when you look at the table in certain angles, but they are there. Had we listened to Kim's sense about things, we possibly would have made the mistakes on the sleeves and perfected our technique by the time we got the table. Now, the table looks pretty good with just a couple of small lumpy spots, while the sleeves and the chairs look really great.

Sometimes it is really difficult to trust that inner gut feeling you have about something. Kim is very intuitive and generally follows her inner voice, but with something we had both never done before and with items as precious as Lois' furniture, it was easy to disregard that inner inkling and search for an outside voice.

Lately, I've been wanting to hear the booming voice of God give me directions as to where to go and what to do. Or I've had a desire to sit with a psychic who can see a broader perspective of my life and have him tell me what to do. These are all symptoms of a lack of trust in my own inner voice. I'm looking for authority outside myself. The only way an individual can have true authentic action in his life is by trusting his own guidance system and acting from that place. Everything else is just reacting to outside stimuli.

Today, before we started working on the furniture, Kim and I had a re-birthing session. We are both trained practitioners in this form of breath work therapy. Basically, it is using the breath to release any area of your life that needs to be surrendered. I did the session on Kim with the intent on releasing fear and worry and gaining clarity. Boy did she gain clarity. While in the session, she had a very clear vision of what we need to do with the land. It washed over her, along with a feeling of peace and serenity. She came out of the meditation with a very calm but energized look on her face. It was very exciting to see.

So how do you trust that still inner voice within? It's a continual process of surrender, surrender, surrender.