On a stormy weekend last spring, I walked through a labyrinth made of stones in the rain of the Santa Cruz mountains, pacing around and around, back and forth, closer and farther from the center. Giant redwoods stood all around me, silent and still except for a steady dripping of raindrops through their needles. I love labyrinths. I can’t get lost; as long as I keep moving, I will come to the center. It’s not trying to trick me or mislead me like a maze. The point is the path, staying on the path.

As I walked, a question kept pushing into my thoughts. What do I need to let go of? What do I need to release?

I collected some sticks that the storm had knocked down into the path from the trees overhead. They were covered in beautiful moss, lacy and green and curling. I chose one first, then another and another, holding them together in a beautiful moss bouquet. My collection grew, and I decided to keep them and bring them home to enjoy. As I was walking back, I crossed over a bridge with a stream below, moving fast and muddy from the rain. Water brings thoughts of time and life and the relentless forward movement of our path, our journey.

Suddenly, this thought came to me:  I don’t need to possess my moss bouquet to enjoy it. I dropped it into the stream, watched it fall, lost track of it in the current. This is what I needed to let go of: Possessing.

I try to hold on to my kids, my time, my relationships, my life. I want to freeze them, save them, preserve them. I want to avoid any change, but that is actually a state closer to death than life. I can journey through life with the people I love, but I can’t make life stop so I can hold on to them. Living is walking my path intentionally, experiencing it without wasting time trying to keep it.

I felt such a lightness letting those beautiful sticks fall, knowing that they were where they belonged, and I didn’t have to keep clutching them, crushing them muddy-handed. I took the path up and out of the woods, past several other mossy branches that caught my eye, but I left them where they were, welcoming the freedom that came from appreciating them without holding on to them .