Day 125b: Wandering HOME from home … (September 01, 2019)
“To wander far from the familiar home of his more adolescent ways of belonging, doing and being, one must, as poet Mary Oliver put it, ‘stride deeper and deeper into the world.’ In truth, the surrounding culture will greatly influence the manner in which any pilgrim wanders (as will his gender and his physical constitution and his psychological temperament and his age, etc etc etc), and yet all those Hows will ever pale in contrast to the Whys of his walk – the reasons for his moving – the goals of his giving – the intentions beneath his living. In one culture, his wandering might take him far from his hometown or village, while in another his geographic movement will have little importance for the ultimate depth of his wandering. Indeed what is critical is not whether the pilgrim engages in this particular practice or heads in that specific direction or undergoes this particular ritual or walks in that particular way. No, it is only truly important that he choose each day to immerse himself fully in his walking – that he fluidly allow his wandering to alter his relationship to the world through which he moves, that he leaves the smaller home of his more adolescent pasts behind and ventures forth boldly into a bigger & better emulation of his Soul … Similarly, all of life’s better teachers show us that though things in truth have to be done bit by bit, every one of those bits must be done fully — with great power and with impeccable integrity. It is true that nothing that Means anything will ever happen quickly, and yet it is just as real that every instant of that happening Means just as much as its fulfilled end. It takes time to learn how to skillfully send an arrow into the center of its target, and yet that developed talent means nothing if we do not then pull back on that bow intently and resolutely and persistently. And so it is with a Life, anyone’s life – every life. We might list things that might be described by others as accomplishments, and yet in actuality they are all only shadows of the larger truth, fragments separated from the whole flow of our Becoming. The pilgrim will arrive if he sets forth courageously and persists until the end, and yet it is each individual step along that way that comprises his greatest success, and every single step should thus be taken accordingly.” ~ inspired by Bill Plotkin & Joseph Bruchac
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