Day 085n: Pausing where rest is Given … (July 08, 2019)
I flowed seemingly ever onward that day – into & through the seemingly shut-down towns of Villambistra and Espinosa del Camino and Villafranca Montes de Oca, up & Up & UP thereafter, through landscapes shockingly alternating between arid mountain and lush rain-forest. And just as my next wave of exhaustion began to nestle solidly upon my shoulders, I came upon an equally ensconced pilgrims’ shelter, and paused thankfully to revel in the same …
“I have lived a big life, and for that I am grateful. And yet as one disengages from life – regardless of its apparent size – and grows more reflective and less drowned in the grind & hum of the day-to-day, it becomes fluidly possible to rediscover a greater wisdom, one reborn in a combination of experience and thankfulness. We must choose to ‘swallow the shadow’ (ie for some the fear of death, for others the obsession with comfort) as it were. We must let go of those vapid images of the fit-body and the successful-life and the influential ego. And if we can do that, this ‘good age’ (as I like to fondly call it) can become full of radiant inspiration – inspiration that leads to courageous action, which in turn gives rise to the tenderest of memories. For in all it’s maze of apparent contradiction and tempted ignorance, somewhere, ever within this great puzzle that is life, rests incredible beauty. And who does not want to live in such a way as to know great beauty through their remembering?” ~ inspired by David Paul Kirkpatrick
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