The Path
Yes. There
is a common, abstracted Path, the one we all walk. But the way it plays out for
each of us, our individual journeys…that
is always unique.
There are overlaps, but mostly they're messy and inconsistent, like the
sketched copy of some intricate blueprint – clumsy fingers hastily trying to recreate what was glimpsed but now gone, those precious moments of revelation.
It's
comforting to find footprints on some forlorn pass. Those who've been before. To follow them for a while
and muse over the age and location of old campfires.
It's fun
to bump into the travelers along the way; to trade stories and advice, to join
forces and walk together for a time. But always there comes a parting of the
ways, and each must ultimately tread their own Path. No matter what. And that
is painful, but the pain passes, and the joy you've shared always outweighs the
loss of a companion. Well, depending on what you choose to dwell on, in your
mind, as you plod on alone.
Sublime; to find a river, an uncertain rapid racing wildly around the bend, and
to trust your gut and jump in, and be swept along. For a time. Eventually you
emerge, whether by clutching a root or by being washed onto the shore, and
you're dripping and invigorated and probably half your stuff is gone.
But it's
the best.
You can't
wait for the next one, a bigger one; faster this time, and wilder…
During the
day you drink it all in, the beauty of the wilderness, the abundance of deep
forest, the calm constancy of rock.
And then
there is the night, ever following the day. Like its lover, or the other half
of a whole.
Eventually
night becomes your blanket, and you press against your bed of earth enthralled
by a black and starry sky. All these
endless questions, right above you, your whole life.
You wonder
why oh why mankind ever slept in caves, or built roofs over their heads. What
folly! What a blind loss!
And then
the next night a storm builds in the north, and its violence totally breaks the
spell of your past hippy-headedness. "Yup,"
you sigh, "that's why." But you're
grinning as you speak to yourself.
Eventually
words whisper their secrets to you, in that ambivalent sacred silence, at dawn
before the birds chime in.
Eventually
you are schooled in the physics of metaphor: water, rock, fire, wind.
You gaze
into the heavens. The stars
truly twinkle; they are pinpricks of eternity.
And you
speak to yourself. You say:
"God is good."
.:.
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