"I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted
to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...to put to rout all
that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not
lived."
~ Henry David Thoreau
I've been chatting a lot recently with friends about journeys and adventures. Swopping stories of derring do on oil rigs with tales of floating weightless on astronaut training flights on the"vomit comet" over the Gulf of Mexico. Of illegal trips over the border into India and being threatened with guns, and escapades being romantically pursued by 6 ft tall russian lesbians in Moscow pre- glasnost. Of plans and wild dreams to sail around the world.
But, in truth, these adventures seemed much less scary in retrospect
than the inner journeys we had undertaken. The journeys to discover and
confront those inner monsters, the hurt, the shame, the unworthiness.
How many people shirk from the inner journey, and as a result - as
Thoreau puts it "In the coming world, they will not ask me 'Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me, 'Why were you not Zusya?' "
"...lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
..... What is called resignation is confirmed desperation; A stereotyped but
unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games
and amusements of mankind".
Henry David Thoreau
It takes acts of
courage to confront our own inner demons. To step out of the comfort
of normal existence, over the edge into things we have not tried
before, stepping into the unknown. The start of the inner journey could
be as seemingly simple as daring to learn how to dance or to sing and
thereby confronting the shame we feel about our bodies being "seen " in
public, or our voices really heard. It could be as simple as daring to
put up a picture for all to see on the internet, or writing a blog,
for that matter. Daring to be ourselves despite what others may think
of us - or what we think they may think of us. And in stepping into the
unknown of risking being ourselves- in no matter how small a way - we
are often so surprised by the complete acceptance of who we are.
Martin Buber recounts how Rabbi Zusya before his death, wrote:
A must.. two Mary Oliver poems
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
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