Part I: Initiation
~ An excerpt from The Dakini Speaks by Jennifer Welwood ~
Look: Everything that can be lost, will be lost.
It’s simple — how could we have missed it for so long?
Let’s grieve our losses fully, like ripe human beings,
But please, let’s not be so shocked by them.
Let’s not act so betrayed,
As though life had broken her secret promise to us.
Impermanence is life’s only promise to us,
And she keeps it with ruthless impeccability.
To a child she seems cruel, but she is only wild,
And her compassion exquisitely precise:
Brilliantly penetrating, luminous with truth,
She strips away the unreal to show us the real.
This is the true ride — let’s give ourselves to it!
Let’s stop making deals for a safe passage:
There isn’t one anyway, and the cost is too high.
We are not children anymore.
The true human adult gives everything for what cannot be lost.
Full Moon Tea for November 15th:
Rose (Rosa spp.)
Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata)
Sage (Salvia officinalis)
The other day I walked beside my dear friend through the woods, with bronze-brown leaves breaking underfoot. The path we were on was one we’ve trod together many times before, and it was on this well-worn trail that I confided in him my feelings of lostness. I’ve not known the next steps to take, the next path to follow in some areas of my life; I see many possibilities but the direction is unclear.
This sensation has been palpable for quite some time, and is magnified even more so with the collective turmoil and fracture we are all experiencing. Despite the ever-present beauties and goodness of this world, you only have to glance around to see that humanity is unmoored, tumbling in a crucible of lostness.
My wise friend, who possesses the ability to pluck deep insights out of the ethers as if he were harvesting ripe apples, reminded me that we must be lost at times in order to find what is most true for our ever-evolving selves. He reminded me that disorienting, in-between times are essential for creating our own meaning in life, instead of blinding following the meaning that has been passed on to us. In a way, it’s a rite of passage to go through thresholds of loss and lostness. Perhaps such a threshold is what the world is now convulsing through, too.
We shouldn’t avoid feelings of disorientation — it could be the most honest and appropriate thing to feel in response to chaos and crisis. Even so, there’s a strong sense of shame that’s attached to the confession of being lost, since society pressures us to always know where we’re going, what we’re doing, and what thing we’re going to accomplish next. But I grow weary of this dictate. Sometimes we must stand in darkness and not know what comes next.
Looking for a straight, well-laid path to get us through life is what gets us into trouble, I think. It’s too simplistic and naive of an expectation to have of a world steeped in complexity. Likewise, following someone else’s path can cause us to be deeply unfulfilled. At this point in my life I don’t want to travel in an established line, anyway, always angled upwards towards some notion of success or salvation.
I want to travel circuitously and subversively — spiraling sideways like a wild vine, downwards like a hungry root, uncontainable like the gusting wind. A straight line from here to there is too restrictive; the upwards angle of progress is too tyrannical and unimaginative. If we are not rambling, wandering, twisting, and getting lost from time-to-time we are not fully living our authentic, earthly lives.
I trust that traveling in non-linear ways holds more meaning for the soul’s journey — in ways we cannot now fathom — than always following a clearly lit, well-marked path.
With full moon blessings,
Steph
Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Traveler, your footprints
are the only road, nothing else.
Traveler, there is no road;
you make your own path as you walk.
~ excerpt from Proverbios y Cantares (XXIX) by Antonio Machado
Part II: Contemplation