The Grace of Change

Big Questions to play with

I just remembered this handout from years ago. I used to give this to participants in transitions retreats I used to lead. I'd hand this out and ask the women to breathe into all of these questions for a few minutes and notice which question most spoke to them. We'd then go around a circle and each woman would ask her favorite question into the Mystery living at the center of our circle, and the center of our lives.

One of the gifts of life transtions is that we get to be like adolescents again.

(Yeah, I know that doesn't feel like much of a gift ;-) ). Remember those all night dishes in high school and college where you talked with your girlfriends about The Meaning of Life? Being in big transition invites us to ask questions of ourselves and our lives we haven't had the time and inclination to ask in a loooong time.

In transition, it's NOT about knowing the answers to the questions.

We can't. The answers will come in their own time. What's important is to simply be with the questions in a soft and curious way.

The Path Is Made by Walking

David - aka The Wonderful Husband - gave me a necklace several years ago with the first lines of this poem inscribed on 2 rings, one silver, one brass: "Traveler, there is no path/the path is made by walking."

Isn't that what a big-ass life transition is about? No pre-made road, trail, highway. Nada.

I had a Big Dream several decades ago in the middle of one of those times of everything falling away. In the dream, I wanted to get to Phoenix (!) as quickly as I could. I tried getting on the freeway, but the on ramp was broken. Damn. I wanted to get there asap.

My only other alternative was to set out across the desert. I picked up a bike by the side of the road and started hoofing it. Suddenly, my way was blocked by a very old, very wise man. He told me to get off the bike, take off my shoes, and just start walking across the desert to Phoenix. He seemed kind, but not the kind of guy you disagree with. I wondered how the hell I was ever going to get there, wherever "there" was.

No other options, though, so I started walking. The old man called out to me and told me to look down at the ground. The ochre desert earth was, to my astonishment, littered with uncut gems.

Don't you hate it when dreams are just so blatantly obvious?

That dream has stayed with me for almost 30 years. It's part of my bones now, the matrix of my soul. I'm thinking about that dream, and this poem, as I begin to write again. Don't know where I'm going, but Machado reminds me that I don't have to fret too much about it. The path is made by walking.

Proverbios y Cantares XXIX

Wayfarer, the only way
is your footsteps, there is no other.
 
Wayfarer, there is no way,
you make the way by walking.
As you go, you make the way
and stopping to look behind,
you see the path that your feet
will never travel again.
 
Wayfarer, there is no way -
Only foam trails to the sea.
 
~ Antonio Machado ~ 
 (Translated by A. Trueblood)

Writing agin...

Ahum...hmmmhmmmhmmm...ack ack...

What you're hearing is the sound of my writing voice coming back to life. Lots of frogs in my writing throat.

As readers of my now-defunct newsletter know, I stopped writing 18 months ago. I couldn't stand the sound of my own voice any more. All I was writing about was stuff I already knew. I was starting to bore myself silly.

Life's too short for that. So I quit writing. I had just plumb run out of things to say.