The Pebble in My Hand

Five Levels of Presence — From a Korean BBQ Lunch to National Leadership, and the Quiet Magic of What’s Already in Your Hands

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What does presence really mean — not as a buzzword, but as a way of moving through the world?

This is a story of five levels of calling, all revealed through one very ordinary day. From lunch with my daughter to Indigenous leadership gatherings, what began as a simple meal turned into a reminder: presence isn’t something you chase. It’s what happens when you pay attention to what’s already in your hand.

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Section 1: The Lunch After Tipperiit

It was just lunch. Korean BBQ in Ottawa, the day after Tipperiit. My daughter and I sat across from each other at a polished table, waiting as the server brought an endless procession of small dishes — tofu, kimchi, sauces in little silver bowls, cuts of marinated meat, washed lettuce folded like envelopes of green.

A chain restaurant, yes. But executed with care. The kind of care that feels like ritual, even if no one calls it that.

As the table filled, I had a moment — a rush of awareness. Noticing the sheer magnitude of what we were partaking in. How many hands had touched these ingredients before they reached us? How many farmers, truckers, pickers, processors, cooks, packagers, shippers, designers? Even the simple leaf of lettuce — it arrived on our plate only because a vast, mostly invisible network worked in harmony to bring it here. If we traced every component back to its origin — the soybeans in the sauce, the sesame oil, the garlic, the beef — it might lead us through oceans, mountains, and thousands of lives.

It struck me that we were eating the labor of a hundred thousand people. And not just their labor — their care, their presence. A hundred thousand people had made it possible for us to sit in that moment, fully nourished.

There was a humility to it. And a soft, full-bodied gratitude.

And yet, it wasn’t a heavy moment. It was light. Warm. Easy. The kind of grace that slides in sideways while you're pouring more water. The kind of realization that doesn’t ask you to change your life, only to notice it.

I felt grateful not just for the food, but for the system that made it possible — with all its flaws, all its excesses, all its brilliance. There was nothing to reject. Only a call to awareness. To do a little better, become a little more conscious, without throwing away what works. Presence, not perfection.

That lunch stayed with me. Not because of anything dramatic that was said. But because we were both fully there. And when people are present with each other, even a meal becomes a kind of prayer.

It was just lunch. But it was also a mirror — a glimpse into the hidden networks, the invisible threads, the quiet miracle of showing up.

And that’s where the story begins.

Section 2: Personal Presence – Returning to the Body

During that same lunch, the conversation meandered into the realm of embodiment — what it means to feel alive in the body, rather than just think about it. My daughter, a dancer of a certain intuitive kind, understands this language fluently. For her, movement is not choreography. It’s presence. And for me, it's music.

Music doesn’t enter me through the ears. It floods in through the body. I don’t just hear it — I feel it, in vibration, chemistry, sensation. The music moves and the body answers, not with thought, but with awareness. It’s a rich, textured experience — and yet one nearly impossible to describe in words. The moment we try to label it, we risk losing it.

That’s the paradox. Children are born body-aware. They don’t lose it — it just gets obscured. Slowly, subtly, we guide them toward thought. Toward interpretation. Toward labels. A feeling is no longer something to be felt — it becomes something to be named, judged, explained, or fixed.

A child says, “I feel weird.” We say, “Don’t worry, you don’t need to feel that way.” And just like that, the feeling is disqualified. Not only is it named, but it is subtly declared wrong.

This is how we begin to feel broken — not because we are, but because our sensations are pathologized. The medical system does this efficiently. We take a real experience and stamp it with a diagnosis. The presence of sensation becomes the absence of health.

But what if those sensations are just the body’s normal response to a situation? What if it’s not disorder — just unprocessed experience? Or simply, the momentum of something still moving?

There are environments that bring us back. Nature, for example. The wild is not predictable. There are no thermostats in a forest. No walls to hang your pictures. No identical ceiling lights. The ground is uneven. The sky constantly shifting. You can’t press a button and expect the same outcome. You have to pay attention.

And that’s the invitation: to remember that your body is nature. Indoors, with climate control and flat walls, we forget. But outside, the illusion breaks. You trip if you stop paying attention. The Earth doesn’t care about your settings.

Our attempts to control the environment bleed into everything else. We want our homes to be 22 degrees. We want our relationships to be predictable. But life isn’t a smart home. It’s a forest trail. The more we resist this truth, the more friction we create.

So we return to the body. Because it’s the one place where presence is always available — raw, real, unfiltered. It doesn’t need fixing. It just needs listening.

And from that place, everything changes.

Section 3: Professional Presence – Seeing the Story Beneath the Strategy

Lately, I’ve been sitting in a lot of meetings. Tables full of smart people, dedicated people — each with titles, deliverables, timelines, and a mandate. The latest one from the Ontario government is ambitious: Every Ontarian will have a family doctor by 2029.

On paper, it’s a clear goal. In practice, it’s a political story. And good politics runs on stories that people can rally behind. That’s how things move. You don’t just solve a problem — you build buy-in. You get people aligned. And often, alignment comes with ripple effects: job creation, funding flows, new roles, new acronyms. It's not just about healthcare. It's also about economy, visibility, and inclusion.

That’s where professional presence comes in.

Being in these rooms, I’m learning. I’ve always been wired to finish things — solve the problem, close the loop. But this space works differently. It’s layered. Relational. Often nonlinear. And the more I engage, the more I realize: it’s not about the finish line. It’s about the field.

Trust is the real deliverable. Presence is the way to get there.

Every meeting is a chance to bring out the best in someone — even just a little. When I show up with that intention, something shifts. The room feels different. There’s less pressure to perform, more space to connect. And from that trust, better ideas emerge. Stronger relationships form. Things get done — not because we pushed harder, but because we listened better.

This is what I’m learning: that presence isn’t passive. It’s active engagement without over-efforting. It’s choosing to see people — and sometimes, helping them see themselves a little more clearly, too.

That’s my contribution, for now. I don’t have all the answers. But I can help create the conditions where real collaboration becomes possible.

And honestly, I think that’s more than enough.

Section 4: National Presence – Tipperiit and the Memory Keepers

I was invited to Tipperiit through my eldest son, who works with ITK. I didn’t know what to expect. What I found was something rare — not just a gathering, but a remembering.

Indigenous leaders, community builders, elders, politicians — all coming together in a space that somehow held both ceremony and strategy. There were speeches, yes. Policy, yes. But there was also muskox and beluga. Lichen and berries. Real food from the land, harvested and prepared by people who live with the land, not on it.

I learned that everything at the Tipperiit feast was brought from the Arctic. Not flown in from a catering service — but hunted, gathered, offered. It wasn’t just nourishment. It was message. The land still feeds us. And those who are most connected to it are the ones who remember how.

I had the privilege of meeting Natan Obed, president of ITK — a statesman with quiet presence and warm clarity. And I met Carrie, director of research, who spoke softly but with impact. She didn’t emphasize her words, yet somehow every sentence carried weight. In her gentle way, she showed me what trust-building looks like in real time. She shared how much she appreciated my son Jonathan’s contributions. And through that small gesture, I saw something big: trust is built in tiny moments, through everyday appreciation.

She didn’t need to make a speech about it. She embodied it.

One of the others I met was Clancy — a man who felt like an oak tree in human form. Steady, rooted, kind. He’s been coming to Tipperiit for years, building bridges across the Arctic Alliance: Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Labrador. Through him, and others like him, I glimpsed something bigger: Indigenous communities are not just healing themselves. They are inviting the rest of us into a deeper form of remembering.

This is presence at the national level. Not as policy alone — but as memory, culture, reciprocity.

ITK isn’t just a national organization. It holds international resonance. These aren’t just regional issues — they’re global teachings. Teachings about how to live without severing ourselves from the Earth. Teachings about how sovereignty isn’t about control — it’s about relationship. And teachings about how people who’ve been through the deepest ruptures often hold the clearest wisdom.

The Indigenous journey is a collective remembering. A signpost for the rest of us. Not in a moralizing way — but in a quiet, grounded, steady way. Like the land itself.

They are the memory keepers. And memory is medicine.

So I listen. Not just with my ears — but with the part of me that knows how to bow. The part that knows I’m still learning. Still returning.

Because the journey home — to the land, to each other, to the body — is one we all share. And they’ve been walking it longer than most of us have been paying attention.

Section 5: The Pebble in My Hand – The Calling That Chooses You

Sometimes I look at my life and see five different callings, pulling in five different directions — therapist, teacher, doctor, connector, witness. But when I slow down enough to really notice, I see that they’re not different at all. They’re just five facets of the same presence.

There’s a metaphor I keep coming back to. It came to me while reflecting on this mosaic of work and purpose:

There are countless pebbles on the ground. Each one beautiful. Each one a possibility. And yet, only one is in your hand. That one — the one you’re holding right now — is the magical pebble.

Why is it magical? Because it’s in your hand.

Why is nothing else in your hand? Exactly.

That’s your calling. Not the one that looks flashiest on someone else’s beach. Not the one the world says you should pick. The calling is the one that shows up in your palm when you’re paying attention. The one that quietly says, I’m yours.Whether it’s a patient, a project, a practice, or a moment — what’s in your hand is what matters most.

Each of the five levels I’ve written about — personal, therapeutic, professional, national, and this — are pebbles I didn’t chase. They arrived. And my only job has been to stay present to them. To notice them. To care for them with the same attention I offer to a patient in silence or a circle mid-sit.

It’s tempting to search for a “bigger” pebble. To imagine the important one is still out there, just beyond reach. But I’ve come to realize: there’s no hierarchy in callings. There’s only depth. And depth comes from presence.

So I’m learning to trust what’s here. To revere what’s already unfolding. Not because it’s perfect, but because it’s mine to tend. And because when I tend it well — with presence, patience, and the occasional laugh — it tends me back.

We don't always get to choose our pebbles. But we do get to choose how we hold them.

And sometimes, that’s all it takes for magic to begin.

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