What the Breaking Leaves Behind

So lately, I’ve been sitting with this question…

What is transformation?

How do we carry forward the wisdom of what we’ve lived through without continuing to carry the wounds?

Last January, on a snowy winter morning, I had the honor of facilitating a New Year’s sound bath and yoga collaboration at On the Mat Yoga.

As I carefully loaded my bowls into the back of my car, I slipped on the ice and caught the loop of one of the straps.

And there it was…my beautiful purple padded bag, with four unique crystal bowls nested inside, lying upside down on the pavement.

They made the most magical sound as they landed…like wind chimes made of sea glass.

And yes, I knew what that beautiful sound really meant…there was major damage inside.

My mind immediately began trying to rewrite what had happened. My thoughts were racing. My body was buzzing…

I circled my street three times on the way home before I could bring myself to pull into my driveway.

Maybe it’s not so bad, I argued.

I sat very, very still with the car in park. No breath. Not yet ready to go inside and look.

And then…BAM…

The bowls were gone.

The bowls I had intended to bring on retreat. The bowls that had carried so many healing vibrations over the years. Three of the four were shattered.

As acceptance crept in over the coming days, new alchemies emerged. But I couldn’t quite let go of the broken ones.

And then I got a call…

Just days before the retreat, a last-minute attendee wanted to join us in Nosara. She happened to be—drumroll, please—a glass sculptor.

Cue the angels.

I asked if she could capture the essence of the bowls and transform their shattered pieces into something new…

As the work began to take shape, I loved seeing the jagged edges still visible. They told the story. They showed where the pieces had come from and what they had lived through.

But when I saw the finished version, all the sharp edges had been softened. The broken pieces had become smooth…

And I didn’t like it.

How would anyone know what this had once been? How would they know where it started or what it had survived?

I struggled. I resisted. I wanted the jagged pieces back.

I thought the rough edges were proof of the transformation. But really, they were proof of the breaking…and I was afraid to let them go.

That realization stopped me.

What if this IS transformation? 

What if we don’t need to preserve the sharp edges to prove what we have lived through? What if the wisdom can remain even when the wound no longer has the same shape?

What if transformation means allowing ourselves to soften…to loosen our grip on the defenses that once protected us and trust that we can become something new without losing the truth of where we came from?

Soon, an extraordinary work of art made from those bowls will hang on the wall of my entryway.

It holds the story of what was broken, but it is no longer shaped by the breaking.

It represents letting go. It represents wisdom earned. And it reminds me that we do not have to hold on to our sharp edges to honor what we have survived.

Maybe transformation isn’t forgetting what happened.

Maybe it’s trusting that we can become something new.