Expecting the Unexpected Engaging with life in this open mindset beckons us to be fully awake, present, observant. Centered and grounded. It keeps us nimble, responsive, flexible. Fluid and flowing. Seduces us into curiosity, aliveness – open to new experiences. Whatever they are. When I arrive at the beach, before reaching the top of the dune, I don’t know what the rainstorms, waves, ebb and flow will have washed away, built, or eroded since my last visit. What will it look like? Will the sand dollars be abundant? The pelicans perhaps absent? The whale skull gone? The “iron beast” submerged or exposed? Today, the Pacific is unusually calm and smooth, as if to show the way, offer a different possibility. The waves are rolling in slow and low, only once in a while they are crashing. The seagulls and long-billed sand pipers are hanging out with each other, peacefully. Bundles of tangled seaweed, plenty of sand dollars, pebbles. And further down, a lonely big elephant s...