I'M ON MY WAY ...

I love to read. One of the things that helps me determine whether or not I'm reading a good book is if I can 'see' myself in it somewhere. Perhaps in the main character - or reflected in that character's friends, family members or somewhere in the greater community.

If I want to be the person I'm reading about, or I'd love to know that person, for whatever reason ~ I love the book. If I'm inspired by the character(s), the qualities they bring to life, the challenges they face and either work through, or don't ~ I'm grateful for participating in the experience.

More than ten years ago, I read a book called The Pull of the Moon by Elizabeth Berg. Briefly, it's about a woman named Nan who just turned fifty, and is dealing with how it feels to be an aging woman in this culture. She is very much focused on all she is losing. She decides to just leave on a driving trip, and the novel alternates between entries she makes in a journal and letters to her husband, Martin. By the end of the book, she has switched her focus from all she's losing to all she actually has.

There's a passage in this book that I return to every now and then ~ as not only do I sometimes feel this way myself - but I'm quite aware that others in my sphere of existence do as well: It's found on page 274 and it reads like this:

And now, in my own stillness, I hear something. 'Where have you been?' my inside body whispers to my outside one. Its sense of outrage is present, but dulled by the grief of abandonment. 'I had ideas. There were things to do. Where did you go?'

What can I answer? Oh, I had some errands to run. I had a few things to do. I needed to get married and have a child and go underground for 25 years, be pleasantly suffocated. I meant to come back. But the bread crumbs got blown away.

So many of us have drifted. Some of us don't really remember who we used to be - and we don't feel completely comfortable with who we're living as now. Or we're caught in transition ~ on the way out of one phase of our lives, knowing that we're to step into the next one - and not entirely sure what that step should be, where it should be placed, for what purpose.

We are questioning what lights us up from the inside out ~ or we're fully aware of what fuels our inner light but we're not sure how to bring that into the reality we're existing in so far.

What if our bread crumbs didn't blow away? What if, when we're ready to look back, clues to who we once were lay waiting for us to decipher - and like scattered bread crumbs, we could pick up the ones that we want to re-integrate into who we now are and allow the others to blow away?

What bread crumbs would you see, the ones you'd want to keep and put in your pocket to remind you who you are? And how might these bread crumbs help you clarify your next step on the path of where you're going, from Here to There?

 

EVERY NOW AND THEN YOU JUST HAVE TO COME OUT FROM UNDER ...

I was driving in the car 30 minutes ago, on my way home from dropping one daughter off at her friend's house and getting back to pick up my other daughter and drive her to the place where her day would then unfold.
 

Feeling relatively happy, I turned on the radio just as the song featured in the video below came on. As I drove, I imagined myself dancing with abandon (one of my favourite things to do and something I don't do often enough, I am at my most 'connected' when lost in dance and song) ... and so unexpectedly, I filled up with intense emotion that cinched my heart, filled my eyes with stinging tears and left an impression like a vice grip was squeezing my throat.

"Where did THAT come from," I asked myself. Because it definitely comes from somewhere. Pain or yearnings or guidance is in us for the interpreting - waiting, patiently waiting for a portal to emerge through; a crack, an opening, a trigger of one kind or another that allows it to show up, full force, in a recognizable way.

So I traced back through the event, looking for clues. (You'll be happy to know that at this point, I'd already arrived home. I'm one of those people who are best not to Reflect and Drive at the same time.) And this passage that I read last July came to mind:

"Sometimes there's just too much to consider, too much to understand and analyze, too many consequences to play out in our mind, too many things to clean, unpack, or repair before we can go out and play.

Sometimes the simplest and best use of our will is to drop it all and just walk out from under everything that is covering us, even if only for an hour or so - just walk out from under the webs we've spun, the tasks we've assumed, the problems we have to solve. They'll be there when we get back, and maybe some of them will fall apart without our worry to hold them up." (From The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo)

And therein lay my answer. The song itself did not impact me nearly so much as how, while listening to it, I imagined myself jumping up out of a chair, letting my hair down, and dancing, kicking, jiving, and jitter-bugging around a room full of happy, light-spirited people doing the same.

My Spirit emerged through the radio today to remind me that, every now and then, it's both healthy and necessary to give yourself permission to ease out from under every now and then - just walk out from under the roles you play, the responsibilities you carry, the challenges you face, the resolutions you seek; and allow your Self to be the Saxman playing like his soul is on fire.

Has this ever happened to you? Can you even remember the last time you put everything down and let your Spirit dance, sing, laugh, whatever makes you light up from the inside? Maybe you could carve out a little time today, or tomorrow, or even next week to heal and rejuvenate in this way. 

 

I AM SAILING ...

Welcome to Gentle Passage ~ a space for anyone and everyone moving through, under over or past something on the way to one place or another.  

Welcome Fellow Travellers, Journey Companions, Friends and Kindred Spirits.

Whether you are transitioning from one state of being to another, emptying of all that no longer serves you, elapsing into the flow of Life, seeking Inspired alternatives, all of the above or any combination of the above ~ stand with me here, at this point in our journeys where we have chanced to meet. 

Feel the gentle breeze reminding us that whatever we're facing is not all that there is.

Hear the sounds around us that desire us to know that as big as our challenges feel ~ we are bigger. And as big as we are, the Universe is bigger still. And in the grand scheme of all of it ~ birds still sing, leaves still rustle, children still laugh, rain still pings.

See that, in spite of how isolated we may be feeling ~ we're actually connected, so very connected; to each other, to alternative approaches, to compassion, to love.

Sail with me, through the passage of time ~ and together, let's create ourselves in whatever ways feel right, knowing that here, in this space at least - we are seen in all our Beauty, we are worthy of whatever healing awaits our attention and we are valued beyond measure.