MYSTE R

We were headed to wine country this past weekend, my husband driving us to a cool new place to hear a friend play music. We took the back roads through Wilsonville and Aurora, to the Willamette Valley where the earth offers up some very fine Pinot grapes. It was one of those rare winter days filled with sunshine, not the typical rainy day this time of year. I moved to Oregon over ten years ago, and as I was about to make the great trek west, my east coast friends questioned if the rains would be too much for someone who was used to a lot of sunshine. I laughed and shrugged them off, because I have always loved the rain. Because of the generous rainfall, Oregon is lush and green, always smelling of pine and grass, with notes of hazelnuts and cherries, apples and woodsmoke. I should put that on a wine label.

Driving along, I was enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face. We insisted on having the convertible’s top down, despite the temperature in the 40’s. So we cranked the car’s heat, turned on the seat warmers, and made our way south to the land of wine. The Willamette Valley is home primarily to the Pinot Grape with almost 20,000 acres grown each year. We were headed to a winery we had not been to before. St. Josef’s in the town of Canby. The owners, Josef and his wife Lilli, planted grapes in 1978, when there were fewer than 10 vineyards in the Willamette Valley. Today, there are over 900 vineyards, and over 700 wineries in the region. I highly recommend the Lilli Sparkling Chardonnay by the way. It was fittingly crisp and delightful on a cold, sunny, winter day.

As we were making our way to St. Josef, I was thinking about life’s mysteries. I am more of a data person, not known for engaging in a lot of mystery kind of thinking or acting. And yet, there are some things showing up for me right now that are mysterious and begging my attention. The biggest mystery is how I came to be in a coach training course after spending nearly two decades as a C-suite leader. The best part of my job as an operations leader was hiring, and mentoring the next leaders. I loved the one on one work with bright, intentional people who see top leadership as part of their calling, and an expression of their talents. After leaving my COO post two years ago, I decided the best way I could continue to support others in further developing their skills, was to learn the art of effective coaching.

So I enrolled in an intensive coach training program last year that requires me to engage in some developmental practices, much like ones I would eventually offer my coaching clients. One of my practices is to pay attention to the “mystery” around me.

The what? That was my first thought upon receiving this practice from my coach mentor. I was confused about the request and asked for an example. “Can you use that word in a sentence please?” My mentor asked, “what has happened to you that you could not easily explain how it came to be?” The biggest one for sure was meeting my husband. Our introduction and connection was nothing short of a miracle. Ok, I had one. I was pleased. The follow up invitation from my mentor was to start paying attention to the mystery all around me: big examples like the one I shared with him, and small, lower case mysteries as well. I said ok, I would to that, and then fell back into my normal routines, not really noticing much of anything new in this area.

Nearly six months went by without me really paying much attention to mystery, then over the course of a week, this word just started appearing. This weekend it revealed itself in as obvious a way as possible. While driving to St. Josef, right in front of us, was a car with a license plate that read “MYSTE R.” Whoa. Ok, how much more of a sign did I need? And it just happened we followed this car all the way to the turn-off for the winery.

What is this thing about the mystery? I have wondered if it’s related to gratefulness because it seems like noticing and being grateful is closely related, or at least a second or third cousin to mystery. I haven’t been all that great with gratefulness either, I admit. So they must be strongly related.

James Hollis, a noted Jungian Analyst, says that life is what happens between the two greatest mysteries: birth and death. I was listening to a podcast this weekend, right before the trip to St. Josef, by the way, and it was all about tuning into the mystery around us. See what I mean? Mystery is stalking me. He asks, can we each be more comfortable with the mystery? Well, in my case, recognizing it comes as the first step before I can gain comfort I suppose. I recommend his podcast on Sounds True: What Is Wanting to Find Expression Through You? James Hollis, Ph.D.

Remember the movie, Love Actually, where Hugh Grant’s character is narrating the opening to the movie, and he is showing scenes of people greeting one another at an airport? The voice over sums up all the hugging and laughing, smiling and kissing, with the line about “love IS actually everywhere?” I was thinking about this with regards to Mystery. What if, like love, mystery is also actually everywhere? For all of you out there who walk with mystery so well, including my husband, thank you for helping show the rest of us what you see.

I’m thinking I may need some special glasses to see the smaller mysteries. Like those fancy blue light filters you can get now. Do you think they make glasses that allow people like me to see Mystery more easily? You know, here is what you “see” without the glasses, and here is what you “see” with them on. That would be so helpful. :) In the meantime, I think the universe has made a significant enough impact on my attention to 1) get me to write about it; and 2) start noticing all the things that are happening around me. Like meeting someone and that conversation turns into a thought, and that thought gives way to some kind of action, and that action produces something new, that did not exist before. Then that new thing leads to meeting another new person, and the whole thing begins again.

When I think about it, maybe it’s all a mystery. And the mystery for me is the seeing.

….and if in Oregon anytime soon, St. Josef Winery is a kind of magical place…