“Surrender is an active endeavor.” ~ Sarah Entrup

I’ve surrendered twice in my life.

According to Yogapedia, “Surrender may be the key to curing mental suffering because it directs the focus away from selfish desires and wants. It is in this way that the goal of experiencing unity with all can be achieved.”

In 2011, I said, “Whatever it takes, God. I want to write.” Thus began my journey.

In 2014, I surrendered to love in a way I never had. In the past, I’d given myself to love and fought for love.

Surrendering freed me, like the physical stance of arms wide open.

The other night, in a container of radiant awakening women, I surrendered to my great love again: my writing life.

I surrendered my book and its revision, landing an agent, and getting published. I surrendered my blog and my financial striving toward making money from my writing.

Surrender doesn’t mean giving up. It means setting my deepest desires into the hands of God/Goddess, angels and guides, and welcoming divine magic to take the burden of struggle from me.

No matter my ego’s insistence, surrendering isn’t quitting.

When I surrender, I trust all that’s beyond to lead me to places I haven’t found on my own. To the alter, I bring my map, plans, dogged persistence, and predetermined pictures of outcome.

I imagine my writing life like hummingbirds I’ve been seeking. Surrender means a new, clean, bright red feeder I fill with fresh sugar water and hang outside my kitchen window.

Surrender is a new invitation, rather than piles of expectation.

I’ve lived in this home five years. Here, nature serves my eyes the delight of bright red cardinals and yellow finches. With my dog as their starting whistle, I’m entertained by squirrels racing and leaping from our deck railing, flying to tiny tree branches like a high wire. The woods welcome me like my own living room. And oh, the deer!

On a walk the other evening, my sister and I gazed at a mama and her spotted twins lounging behind our yard. Such ordinary bliss.

But, hummingbirds? No, not one in five years. We hung out a feeder before. Nothing.

A few weeks ago, I purchased a new feeder at a farmer’s market. How could I go wrong for $7? I reread instructions for the ideal sugar to water ratio.

Now hummingbirds, with their magnificent wings and luminescent green, hover at the feeder. They’re slower than New Mexico hummingbirds, as if they’re lingering.

Hummingbirds remind me my deceased mother, as she was enthralled by them. As their wings flutter, so does my heart.

They answered the invitation. I ‘d almost forgotten my reverence toward them.

Dictionary.com says reverence is: a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration, and the outward manifestation of this feeling.

With reverence, I surrender my writing life and career. I set it on the altar of the divine.

I ask for it to be blessed, cared for, and delivered into this world like a newborn baby.

May she grow healthy and be of benefit. As she does, may I delight in the joy of her creation.

I continue to fill this new bright feeder with words. I surrender my gift, but not my desire to give it.