After discovering I'd been heading in the wrong direction with my life's work for the longest time, I was lost. I decided to write daily, without any preconception of what to write, in the hope it would become a map for me, revealing a path forward in real-time. I hope these little pieces of writing, are solace and support to anyone who is lost or flying on a trajectory they no longer want to be on.
12) Ease
I woke up feeling anything but easeful. Sometimes I just open my eyes and there's a collection of emotions inhabiting my body for seemingly no reason.
I remind myself that it's ok, I don't need to make meaning of it, I just need to tend to myself as I am. Listen a little more closely to what feels right for me - a shower, a walk, writing, talking - and just do that.
I notice that I struggle without some kind of plan or purpose, my mind wants to grab onto any passing thought as data to be processed, a solution to be found and actions to be taken. There is a temporary sense of solidity when I do follow this. I feel 'better' with a plan, a goal, a future outcome.
But that also causes worry, stress and anxiety, endless internal questions and checking. The 'better' feeling soon is superseded by nagging doubts and disappointments when reality doesn't meet my expectations.
I watch my hands as I fill the measuring cup with laundry liquid, unscrewing and pouring, all the muscles. nerves and tendons working together effortlessly to complete the task. Now there's a miracle! And there too is beauty and grace, the flawless design of my body-mind.
And I wonder why I should want to be any different, why I should want my life to be any different, from how it is.
Those powerful times when I experience how I'm right at the epicentre of an unimaginable - infinite even - expansive field of energy, where every potential and possibility exists and miracles are always happening, it's then I know that I really don't need to make plans or fill my life with actions.
It's very counter-cultural to trust. It seems strange to relax and be led by whatever appears in front of me ( or within me). It takes a letting go of a LOT of conditioning to do nothing but what occurs to me in the fruitful moment.
It's not in some imagined future that my power and fulfilment lie waiting for me to catch up through a series of carefully choreographed actions. But also it's not like this moment is the end of the journey, and yet it holds the secret and map for the continuing path.
Like an acorn, which contains, hidden, all the knowledge, instructions and capacity to become an Oak tree, each day, each hour, each minute has something precious and shining in it.
In this expectant present, which is the only place my body can ever be, there is an opportunity, always there, to just slow down and allow the frantic thinking to be sloughed away by just pausing and allowing whatever is occupying me to pass.
And pass it will - all thoughts are temporary - and what is underneath is where Divine Mind inhabits, the pure intelligence of the Universe.
It might not shout with the total solution to all life's problems, but it will inform and suffuse this rare and particular moment with something vital and alive.
Here is where I trust. The answer to the perceived problems of this present moment is simply to reside in it, not wishing for anything different or more. There can only be an answer to the problems of now, in the now.
I close my eyes and feel the fertile ground inside me. The light of something growing.
13) Priestess
Priestess definition: a woman who officiates in sacred rites.
Such mixed feelings about this word.
When I look to the culture around me, even historically looking back to the more indigenous past of these islands, a Priestess seems to be a creator and performer of ritual and a teacher and tender of her people.
My modern, intellectual memory conjures images of robed women in a circle, chanting, faces lit by the candles in their hands.
When I search priestess on the internet, I'm offered training courses in Glastonbury with new age art depicting white, young, thin women with flowing long blonde hair or romanticised fiction books about young women set in some fantasy past - note the young!
But why did this word come to me following a moment out of time? What is it to me?
I flail about in the murky and unreliable recording of my memory from a few days ago and really can only recall the feeling, a light switching on in a dark room, dispelling the illusions that I'd imagined there.
But, my wise self reminds me, it's not in the past I'll find my answers, it's now facing this blank page.
I think Mary Oliver was a priestess in the way I feel it. She communicated her awe of nature in spell-binding words, crafted to touch the soul. I cannot help but feel connection and affinity when I read her words. I'm transported to the Divine root we share, seemingly at one with her envisioning.
To me, a priestess is one who longs to serve nature and reveal its wisdom and wonder in order to nourish and heal us all.
And just to tenderly love nature, offering each embodiment of it honour and reverence, to flood our collective consciousness with gratitude for the gift of living amongst the incredible beings who make up the web of life on this miraculous planet.
I don't know where this leaves me, I am not a great artist or a poet, nor do I want to create art or poetry to be sold even if I was able. I have little desire for my words or pictures to be received by others and not much need for approval. *
I simply want to let my deep connection with nature express itself through beauty, maybe simply through a beautiful feeling.
This line of thought leads me again to visions of monks or nuns cloistered in silence, offering nothing but praise to the Divine and receiving flashes of ecstasy in return.
Maybe this is all just a craving for disconnection from the human-made societal container I've been shoehorning myself into for over 55 years? Maybe I don't have to remove myself from civilization to do this. I don't know. Maybe something to explore. Maybe not.
I haven't been to the Oaks for two days, it's time to return to their wisdom again.
*I muse upon the pull within myself to take photographs and why take them if not to share them with others? Does it matter if I'm the only person who ever looks at them?
You can find the previous instalment of this series here:
Gorgeous, as always, Kate. This struck me: "The answer to the perceived problems of this present moment is simply to reside in it, not wishing for anything different or more. There can only be an answer to the problems of now, in the now." I find so much comfort in knowing we are made to handle the now. If I look to now, take of now, and allow now to be as it is, the "future" (all the "nows to come," as it were) will take care of themselves as well. Something in that fills me with a sense of lightness and relief. Also, I appreciate the photos you take and share. They sparkle. xoxo