“There's always a story. It's all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything's got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.” Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky Your life story is like an intricate tapestry woven from ancient spools of colorful thread. Each fine thread, spun from star dust, is woven on a cosmic loom which, when the time is just right or 'once upon a time', is fated into the world as you. Shimmering strands of DNA come together in a beautiful and unique masterpiece that contains the Universe's imprint, now incarnate in the jagged edges of family, race and cultural, ready to unfold as your life, your story.
The tapestry that comes into the world as you, though intrinsically beautiful, is far from complete. If you were able to look back at the early version of your life, you might not be able to recognize yourself. Loose threads dangle in every direction as if waiting for you to pick up the shuttle to pass though the loom of your days to continue the story. Slowly, over time, in spite of many fellow weavers tugging on the loose threads, an image of you begins to take shape. There comes a time when you stand back from the tapestry, feeling that you may be nearly complete in creating the image of you. Suddenly it seems that, when you weren't looking, some invisible force has tugged on the frayed edges of your masterpiece reveling a tangled web and distorted image. All those years spinning yarn from the wool of ambition, weaving a career, borrowing more and more thread from the local thread bank, falling in and out of love, leaves an indelible impression that there much more to be discovered. Then you remember that underneath the storied layers of knotted and frayed yarn there is one golden thread. In order to untangle the web that has become your life you must follow that golden thread that was secretly woven before the beginning of time and is now fated or concealed within the corporal surfaces of the unlikely narrative of your life. The golden thread now shimmers with a luminescence that leaves your once colorful story faded in the background. This is the golden thread of purpose that when followed will lead to your deepest joy and ultimately to your destiny. Secretly woven, partially hidden in each of us, perhaps before we are born, is a story. This story holds an orientation and a purpose for each of us and for all of us. Though many feel like we are born with no story, like a blank slate (tabula rosa), written on the essence of each one is a core pattern and vital shape that can be "remembered" and lived into. This story-thread can be sought and found within as well as encountered in the outer world as your story is interwoven with other's. The Journey is field guide or weaving guide for this next part of your Journey. I love Mary Oliver's question that touches the age-old human inquiry, "Tell me, what will you do with your one wild and precious life?" “Who am I?” and “For what purpose was I born?” and “What should I do with my life?” The insights, or the way, can be found inside the questions themselves, inside the one asking, and inside the story already already being lived. The quest, or journey, begins with your story. TLC
0 Comments
They say that when we pass
from this life to the next there is a tunnel and a welcoming light at the end. I say as I walk through the wooded canopy of green toward the shimmering light on Ore Pond that this is eternal life now ... and death too. They say in heaven the streets are paved with gold. I say that the blanket of pine needles shimmering with golden luminescence remind me that I am alive today. They say that in heaven flowers grow with a rainbow of colors. I say as I gaze at the lilies of the valley and the bright blue Spring flowers on the path that with only a simple acknowledgement we can see eternity in a single petal. They say that we shall be reunited with those who have gone before us. I say they are already here having not gone anywhere just living in a different time. They say that God will take us from the suffering of this life to stand with the Angels in a circle of unending praise. I say that that time and space is here and now as I walk on this path my heart singing hymns of praise in harmony with the birds. Now I wonder, could hell be that time and place we touch when we stake our lives on what "they" say and all our longing and heart's desire lie always in some other time and place just beyond our reach? All one morning in the woods at Double Trouble. TLC On the second threshold - Surrender
When was I Ever Less in Dying? Rumi "Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” Jesus, John 21 Just when it seemed I had found my bearings on this strange and stormy path having passed through lush and open fields that deepened a knowing place and carved out wide channels in my heart for Love I came to a pathless place so unknown to me that I couldn't tell if was a dark foreboding wood or a sheer cliff. Frozen in time and space I reached into my bag for the compass that kept me on course now spinning hopelessly and the canteen of intention whose sweet water had run dry. A voice from the bright abyss rose like the sound of an earthquake from the ground of being and from the sky above My bag now emptied of all tools of navigation shimmered with a bright luminescence as if Golden Threads of purpose were woven into the very fabric of the bag Illuminating pure longing I folded the bag around my waist as if girded with courage I knew what to do. . . "Within my darkest night
You kindle a flame that never dies away never dies away.” Taize I hold my candle before my eyes that squint to see through the fog of aspiration and pragmatism. There in the not too distant future is a marking, an Ebenezer, the shape of which is firm and tall even as the words inscribed on it cannot be seen through the fog. There is a next step to be taken illuminated by the flickering flame that while shining is also melting the wax of my dreams that might be extinguished by the exhausted flame. I wonder with sincere anxiety, should I find a place to sit on the path before the darkness? Or should I keep moving blindly feeling my way toward the stone? Then, suddenly from the dark abyss at flame's quivering end another candle is given, as if the Divine was a cosmic chain smoker. And once again I go forward step by step hoping, as my little candle drips wax upon the path that the universe will show up when all vision fades to light the way. TLC about 7 minutes long... breathe into an open heartWe sat in circle in the Village to share our thoughts about the Pilgrimage. |
Notes for the WayThis is a space for Journey Guides to post "field notes" and observations along the path. Archives
May 2022
Categories |