The Enchantment of "Maybe..."

Wild horses: Photo by Kubra Zehra from Pexels

There are stories that answer questions, and then there are stories that remove all need for answers. They quench our souls like the first monsoon shower upon parched earth. This is one of those timeless tales, brought down to us through the Daoist tradition and most often attributed to the philosopher Liezi. A tale narrated around evening fires, handed down from grandparents to grandchildren through the long forgotten centuries.

So step into this moment with me, and picture a cozy village in ancient China, nestled within magnificent mountains. In this village lived an old farmer with wrinkles in his face that told of long years of wise living, a man whose wealth was modest, save for one extraordinary horse, strong, spirited, and the pride of his household.

Until one fine sunrise came, and the horse was gone, having disappeared without leaving a single trace behind.

What everyone said....

The neighbors gathered quickly, as neighbors do, offering their condolences, declaring with absolute certainty what terrible luck it was to lose such a magnificent creature. The old farmer listened politely, remaining unhurried by their anxiety. His response was only a single word.

"Maybe."

The villagers exchanged bewildered glances, convinced there was no uncertainty whatsoever, for a prized horse had vanished and this was obviously a tragedy, or so it seemed to their eager eyes.

A few days later the farmer woke to the sound of thundering hooves. His horse was coming back. And following behind the horse was a herd of untamed wild horses, coming from the northern mountain pass, magnificent and free, as though the old horse had simply wandered into the wilderness to gather an unexpected abundance and lead them all home. The neighbors returned, marveling at the farmer's extraordinary fortune and proclaiming that his wealth had multiplied overnight. The farmer stroked his old horse, looked at the crowd, and whispered that very same word.

"Maybe."

The Wild Cannot Be Rushed

The farmer’s young son began the patient work of gentling the wild horses, filled with the eager, fearless certainty of youth. Until one autumn afternoon, when he was thrown down violently by a powerful wild horse. The son fell so hard that his leg broke. He was left to walk with a limp for the rest of his days. The neighbors arrived once more and lamented such dreadful luck and mourning the ruin those wild beasts had brought upon the home.

The old farmer sat quietly beside his son, looking neither angry nor resigned, and offered that single, enduring answer.

"Maybe."

What We Cannot Yet See

Not long afterwards, the dark winds of war reached the frontier, and imperial soldiers swept through every village, forcibly conscripting every able-bodied young man for a brutal campaign from which few would ever return. When they entered the farmer’s home and saw his son’s broken leg, they passed him by, leaving him as the only young man in the entire village to remain safely beside his family.

This time, the neighbors did not come, for there was nothing left for them to declare.

The Wisdom of "Maybe"...

I find myself returning to this story more often these days, perhaps because I catch myself falling into the very same trap as the well-meaning neighbors.

The old farmer offers us a wise way of walking through the world. There is something deeply freeing about allowing life to remain unfinished for a little while, trusting that today's disappointment is still unfolding, that a closed door is perhaps opening another path, and that today's confusion might simply be tomorrow's clarity arriving slightly out of sequence.

I leave you with three questions that helped me integrate the wisdom of "maybe"

🌿 Can you think of a moment in your own history when something that felt like terrible luck later revealed itself to be a profound gift, one whose beauty could only be seen through the generous perspective of time?

🌿 Is there a hardship you are navigating today with your beloved animal companion that might still be unfinished in its unfolding?

🌿 What outcome are you gripping so tightly that life no longer has room to place anything new and unexpected into your open hands?

The "Horse" I Lost

Years ago, when I first earned my teaching credentials and opened my very first course, I remember the heartache of watching the sign-ups trickle in far slower than I had hoped. I will not pretend it did not hurt. It did. I sat with my own version of the lost horse, wondering what it meant.

I said, as best I could, "maybe."

Since then, I completed my teacher training from CWALU, and now my Qigong healing instructor certification, and something in how I teach and hold space for both the mystical and the pragmatic has shifted. Whether that shift was the reason or simply one part of a much longer unfolding, I genuinely do not know. What I do know is that the Energy Healing Demystified challenge, which many of you joined earlier this month, has a record number of registrations.

Maybe.

And now, something new is germinating. I am putting together Animal Communication Practice Classes, six weeks of live animal communication practice. If you would like to be part of the conversation, please let me know in advance.

Share your interest here

I do not yet know exactly how this will unfold. And for the first time in a long while, I find that entirely alright.

Maybe.

From Sir Lancelot's Desk 🐾

(on the importance of remaining gloriously undecided)

Dearest Readers,

It has come to my attention that there is growing concern regarding my habit of standing in open doorways.

Apparently this behavior is infuriating.

I have heard words such as move, pick a side, either come in or go out, and, on one particularly emotional afternoon,"you fluffy traffic cone".

First of all.

Rude.

Secondly, I feel compelled to clarify that what you are witnessing is not indecision. It is advanced scientific research.

As many of you know, I have devoted much of this year to the practical study of quantum mechanics. While your species insists on using particle accelerators and billion-dollar laboratories, I have chosen a more elegant approach.

The hallway. More specifically, the doorway.

You see, Herr Werner Karl Heisenberg proposed that certain properties of a particle cannot both be known with perfect precision. Observation changes the system. An intriguing hypothesis. Naturally, I decided to test it.

When I occupy the doorway, I exist in a perfectly respectable state of quantum ambiguity. Am I in the room? Am I outside?

The answer is yes. (or 42, depending on which universe you subscribe to... I remain agnostic on the matter.)

The confusion begins only when Idee arrives carrying a basket of laundry and demands, "Well? Are you coming or not?"

The instant she asks the question, she becomes the observer. The wave function collapses. A perfectly elegant quantum state, destroyed by impatience.

This happens with astonishing regularity. I continue the experiment nonetheless. Science requires sacrifice.

Mostly hers.

Some have suggested I could simply make a decision. To those people I say this: if Schrödinger was permitted an entire cat in a box, surely I may have a doorway.

History will vindicate me.

Until then, I shall continue standing exactly where I am, occasionally rotating ninety degrees for no apparent reason, simply to gather additional data.

Yours in psi.

Sir Lancelot

Senior Household Energetic Consultant

Independent Researcher, Quantum Feline Mechanics