“There’s no place like home!”

I woke Monday morning faced with packing and a very long day of travel on the way home from the Rabbit Hole. Part of me wished that I had a pair of ruby slippers and could just click my heels three times and be home.

It turned out just as well that these powerful postmodern ruby slippers are still on their way from Fluevog’s magical shoe elves. It seems there was still more for me to learn on the bumpy flight from Portland.

There was considerable turbulence over Idaho and Utah. I was having trouble reading and decided to check out the movies. Once again, I found a movie with a message for me. A Dog’s Purpose.

Of course, I’d read the book by W. Bruce Cameron, but it had been a while. And I had tissues in my jacket pocket so I took a deep breath and pushed play.

I laughed and cried my way through the tale of a dog who returns in different lives with different people. Whether you understand that as fiction or heresy or theoretical physics or even actual possibility matters not. It’s a really good story!

If you’re curious, I’m going with theoretical physics on this one, with thanks to knowledge I most closely associate with Chunyi Lin, my Qigong teacher. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only be transformed.

Our hero, who starts out as a puppy named Bailey, is trying to figure out his purpose in life. Love. Play. Seek. Find. It almost reminds me of an Elizabeth Gilbert book, with the addition of chasing chickens and an unexpected friend named Horsedog.

That’s as far as I’m going to go with the story except to say that if you google A Dog’s Purpose, you’ll find lots of ways to watch the whole movie for free. (Hint. Hint.)

Oh, there’s even a Landseer Newfie named Roxie!

Oddly, much of my weekend down the Rabbit Hole was taken up with figuring out my purpose in life, as well. Or, more specifically, the expression of my purpose in this moment.

Like my flight home, it’s been a rather bumpy journey.

Mom. Nurse. Student. Partner. Pastor. Counselor. Leader. Coach. Rescue mom/Frequent Foster Failure. Author. Artist. Activist. Grandmother.

Ironically, my purpose turns out to be similar to Bailey’s:

Have fun. Find someone to save and save them.

Lick the ones you love. Be here now.

Ok, a little editing might be helpful. You get the drift.

Or, to put it another way:

Calling forth life changing new stories

out of old, limiting, ineffective ones.

Which sounds a bit Freudian, I’ll admit, but Freud wasn’t wrong about everything!

There’s more to come.

For now, I have the first couple of bricks in my yellow brick road. Also Faery Hair. And the world’s coolest ruby slippers on the way! The journey goes on!