The Wisdom to Know When to Hold on and When to Let Go

Seems like an easy enough task, knowing what is working in your life and what is not. Not so! Even more difficult is taking it to the next step, and deciding and implementing the letting go. I sit on the dock. I am the only one on it at the moment, with the non-stop cries of the many crows drowning out the subtle songs of the Towhees, Flickers and the Goldfinches, who have been gobbling up the feast I have set out for them. The other noise that is not so welcome, is the noise inside my head.
I am recuperating from an intense bout of migraine, and the cloud has finally lifted. What better time to evaluate what is working, and what is not. The chronic varying pain that I have been dealing with the past months, has been so debilitating, that it has gotten in the way of my life, my dancing, and my creating. I have felt stunted in the quicksand, and the harder I try to get out the harder it becomes, like trying to catch the proverbial tail.
The past few days I have been pondering the sculpture that lay drying and cracking in the studio. It is clearly not working for me. I have been unable and uncompelled to work on it, yet not able to let it go, move on, create space and begin a new piece. It grows heavier by the day, as I struggle with throwing something out, that I have spent countless hours creating, and accepting the fact that it is a struggle, it is not going to work and I need to let the process of creating, it be enough. I need to let go of the constant struggle. As I held the crumbling piece in my hands, I knew what I had to do. The piece is about balance/unbalance, feeling broken and unsteady, almost falling, and creating it, has been that and more. The struggle was no longer fun and satisfying, so why keep at it, fighting, knowing it will never emerge in one piece from the kiln, if it is already breaking in my hands. It is just not going to work and I had to have the wisdom to let it go. It felt like the more I struggled with creating this piece, the more I was holding onto struggle in my life, and for what purpose?
Throwing it in the trash was not as difficult as I thought, although I coddled and caressed some of the crumbling bricks in my hand. Then I hit the wall, like a pinata, with one of my clay paddles and the wall totally fell apart. I guess there where treasures of wisdom, lurking inside the "pinata" I placed it all in the trash, broken head and all. I thought about creating some ceremony around it, but why honor struggle. Although I do honor the courage it took me to throw it out, to let it go. This is something brand new for me. It is over, it is done, but the learning has to begin. 
I look up at this moment, how did I know to look up from my writing, but something called to me from above, as a bald eagle flies right over the lake and over my head with a fish in its mouth!!!! I am absolutely awe struck! Amazing, what freedom! This must be a sign. I feel like he came out just for me, and I am humbled and moved beyond words, yet I go on.
I am faced with the questions that forever reside in my head, that I have some of the answers to, yet for some reason, do not move forward and implement the change, even though I truly believe that things will change if I do. So I sit..... I try to "be". I am committed to begin a yoga and meditation practice again,(I have begun to listen to meditations on my hammock), I am committed to move and exercise more to release some stress, (I have been walking 3 miles a day). I am going to create some work that is not pulling from the depths of my emotions for now, and not focus on this aspect. I have to just create for creations sake, and let it flow without needing to feed the turmoil inside through my work. I am going to try to "do one less thing a day". I am going to practice awareness of the breath more. When the noise and unrest rear their ugly heads in my head, I am going to stop and shift and breathe, think of purple, a healing color, instead of letting the destructive thoughts pull me under in an attempt to drown me. And I am going to give myself permission to be kind and forgiving to myself if I falter in my actions, as long as the intentions are there. I believe that all this will not only create space in my head, my body and my life but create a greater quality of life, and I love my life. It is hard to feel joyful when you are in pain, but I have to believe I have control over this. It will create space for creating.
And so I reflect on the initial impetus for my sculpture, and the inspiring quotes which are even truer today than when I began it, and reaffirm my decision to let go, to throw it away:

"Don't you think you'd be safer down on the ground?' Alice went on, not with any idea of making another riddle, but simply in her good-natured anxiety for the queer creature. 'That wall is so very narrow!"

"In that case we start afresh," Humpty Dumpty went on.