Finally Lost
Living near the Great Smoky Mountain National Park gives many opportunities for walking, for hiking. One of the trail apps on my phone lists over 500 miles of trails within an hour’s drive of home; however, I admit I’m quite fond of one section of the park only eight miles from my home.
Two or three times a week I explore trails at this popular area. Tourists visit for the three easily-accessed waterfalls and most do not stray from those areas so a solitude-lover can find peace by walking past the waterfalls…usually. On busy weekends there are those tourists that feel the call of the forest beckoning and walk deeper into the woods.
On multiple occasions people have stopped and asked me, on these back trails, if the path they were walking on lead back to the parking lot. Some have small children with them, others are adults out for a ramble. It always concerns me that people wander past a chosen destination and keep walking without knowing where they are going…how long or steep a trail is, where it goes, if it loops back or continues 15 miles to the other side of the park. I cannot imagine heading off on an unknown walking trail with no idea where it led. It seems a bit dangerous and careless.
The other day I was on a new trail and found the signing was not that great. I knew the area but not that particular trail. There were intersections with no signage and the trail was not a gentle trail in places. I pulled out my phone and thankfully the Gaia trail map app gave me the exact location and I navigated with ease. The arrow showed me where I was and when I came to an intersection I could effortlessly choose the correct way forward. Because the trail was only about 5 miles in a loop, I could have easily backtracked out if I had taken a wrong turn–had the app not worked.
Years of cave diving taught me to notice every turn, every intersection and that training comes in very handy when navigating any adventure. And like diving in a cave, I want a map so I know where I am and where I am going.
That’s the ideal, right? Multiple times I have given directions to people who have no clue where they are and my judgmental little head shakes after we pass and they walk on, assured by a random woman that they weren’t lost. I did have a bit of fun recently when a couple asked where they were and I said, “Oh, you’re halfway to Gatlinburg now.” Their faces dropped and their eyes got big. “No, no!! I’m just kidding. Just take a right at the next two intersections and the trail will take you to your car.” I don’t think they appreciated my warped sense of humor.
In the greater scheme of life, how well can we know where the path of life will lead? Some people chart their path early on and deliver a neat, forward progression that fits their early goals; but, I suspect for most of us, the adventure of life can be rather messy at times with no real guarantee that the final destination will be the hoped-for ‘parking lot.’
Other folks might hear the call of life but feel too afraid to risk being lost. What if the path they take leads to an unknown intersection. Then what? What if they take the wrong path? So they never listen to the call of adventure, of life asking them to take a risk. They stay in their nice little ruts and are happy. And that’s perfectly okay. It really is.
And then there are those who live in a place of listening and act from that place. These are the ones that wander down life’s trails not knowing where they go. It seems a bit risky but if they stay present, there will be guides along the way. Signs, maps or a person who can give direction.
In an outdoor shop in Sylva, near where I live, I recently saw a tee shirt with a graphic of a hiker and a dog and the mountains in the distance. The wording was simple–Finally Lost. Inside myself I heard profound silence as I felt the reverberation of that message.
On trails I am careful and like to know where I’m going, thus the phone app and collection of maps on my bookshelf. In life, there’s one guiding-light-question that I depend on in my journey–Where is my soul calling? Do I have the courage to trust the answers that come and trust there will be signs and guides along the way? If so, I am perfectly okay not knowing how this adventure ends, where it ends and in fact finding myself finally lost.
When we surrender to the Unknown, we allow the unlimited potential that infuses life to be fully available so we creatively build a life that sparkles and vibrates with amazing richness. It’s our choice. Always.
On Being a Bridge
Recently I wrote about the Doorway to Oneness and how I found myself connecting deeper with Nature through playing native flutes outdoors. I concluded the ingredients for me are natural beauty, intentional breathing, willingness to open and surrender to the place, laying down of my defenses and opening of my heart and mind. One of the necessities, I thought, was being isolated from people I don’t know…but that was challenged at a beautiful waterfall.
I seek out quiet places in Nature, away from boisterous crowds and especially tourists. Anyone that follows my social media posts knows I have been lamenting disrespectful tourists that descend on these ancient mountains. The theory that I need to be away from people I don’t know in order to surrender and drop into Oneness was disproven by an unusual experience.
I stopped by my favorite store in Cherokee, Medicine Man Crafts, to pick up some elderberry tincture and talk with the owner about native flutes. One of my intentions is to co-create music with Nature through native style flutes and I wanted a flute created by a tribal member, to offer a stronger link between the land, flute and ultimately the music offered as a gift to the Spirit of Place. The flute I was drawn to was made by Daniel Bigay. He’s a member of the Echota Cherokee tribe of Alabama. (I recently wrote a piece called Echoes, about playing flutes in the Smoky Mountains…Echota tribe–Echoes….this is getting officially weird).
After leaving the shop I drove to a local waterfall on Cherokee tribal lands and took the flute with me up the snowy trail. I wanted to dedicate it at the waterfall to help heal the planet’s waters, a sort of life mission for it.
As soon as I arrived on the bridge at the base of the falls and began playing, I felt someone coming up the path and stopped playing. I walked to the far side of the bridge to provide social distancing. He said, “Please keep playing.”
Even though I was a bit shy, I did. Playing a wooden flute in temperatures hovering just above freezing is good to begin with but warm breath moving through it soon causes sound issues as it condenses on the chilly wood. And my fingers were so cold I could barely continue.
His ten or eleven year old daughter arrived and walked over to listen. It didn’t sound tremendously awesome because of the condensation, but I kept on for a while.
Finally, I stopped playing and said hi to the girl then put my mittens over my fingers to warm them. Meanwhile the wife and a troop of very loud, rowdy teenage boys arrived and I gave up playing on the bridge. I walked to the far side of the area and played again, once my fingers had thawed, standing on large rocks, gazing into the creek, sending along wishes for clean water and peace.
Then I decided to walk down the trail, through the large group–my mask in place and some of them wore masks. But instead of walking down the trail as planned, I felt drawn to stop under a rock outcropping near the bridge. I began to play again. This is very unlike me. I want to be away from people. As the family walked back down the trail past me, the dad told them to be quiet and listen. The energy shift was dramatic. They quieted down, quit roughhousing and dropped into a completely different energetic space. I could feel their respect.
The sweet notes floated over the trail, echoed off the walls of the cliff and found a way into the hearts and minds of this rowdy group. I was shocked.
Rather than try to isolate myself when I play, I can open to Oneness amid rowdy humans and hold the intention of calm and love and that can actually change those around me in a positive way.
I’ve been playing as a way to build a bridge between Nature and myself, to open to Oneness. Now I feel called to play to connect Nature and me and other humans. This new flute is bringing powerful Medicine to my life already and it obviously wants to bring this same Medicine to other humans.
This little A minor flute is a bridge and fits perfectly with my life intention. I went through a spiritual dedication ceremony many years ago and my spiritual intention for life was, and still is, to be a bridge between Nature and humans. It seems an important new ‘friend’ has come to support this mission.
I assigned this little flute a life mission of helping to heal Earth’s waters. It clearly shared its mission with me–to build a soul connection between humans and the natural world… with anyone who listens. May it be so.
Echoes
A little holly tree, about waist high, caught my attention so I stopped and pulled out my native flute to play it a tune. I started doing this on some of my hikes into the forests of the Smoky Mountains a while back. I play as a thank-you to Nature.
As the first notes of the flute floated over the tree and out into the woods, I paused. I do this to create space and allow the notes to drift. Today, in that first pause, I heard a magnificent echo that resounded from the bottom of two mountain ridges I stood between. It was a most magical experience listening to the mellow, resounding notes drifting back from their journey to the mountains on either side of me.
As I walked on the echoes stayed in my mind. Up to the top of the ridge, down the other side to the beautiful creek below, I thought of how what we put out in the world comes back as echoes.
Perhaps the echo of one effort returns immediately and the results shine quickly. But maybe something else we did decades ago just begins to return as an echo long after we remember doing it. Sometimes we may not even live to see the echo return.
Moving further down the trail I reflected on recent events in our country. The echoes put out by a man are returning now, some that started over five years ago are returning as violence and unrest and meanness. I will never forget him making fun of a reporter with cerebral palsy and mimicking him. That should have ended his campaign but somehow the meanness and ridiculously bad behaviors he repeated only grew a fanatical fan base that finally felt free to outwardly be mean and violent. Those echoes are returning now through violence and death and threats.
What we put out returns and in the going out and coming back, makes ripples in the world. Never has there been a more important time to be clear about our intentions and the energy we put out. For whatever we send out will return.
Now is the time our skills are needed. Many of us have been waiting and diligently working on ourselves, healing our wounds, going deeper into our pain to become clearer channels of light and love. We have been in the background, working where we can to make a difference but knowing there was a greater work we were called to do. We have experienced frustration about not knowing what it was or how we would know or when, if ever, we would be able to do what we came here to do.
Make no mistake. Now is the time for which we were born. Lightworkers, healers, teachers of love and compassion, wisdom-keepers, scholars, gentle souls, artists, strong souls, scientists, those who stand up to hate and violence, Nature-lovers, priestesses, empaths….now is the time. This is the moment for which we have prepared, for which we incarnated.
Let us send out the echoes without attachment to where they will travel or how they will help in this transformational time. Let us send them out anyway. May we gather the fierce love within and allow it lead us to share the gifts we arrived with and have developed as we waited.
Some echoes return immediately. Others are eternal.
What’s Next?
Recently I wrote blog posts about releasing old stories we tell ourselves. Part 1 and Part 2 were about our individual, familial, and cultural stories that keep us stuck with a limited definition of who we are. The big question is, what’s next?
We do the hard work of recognizing those abusive stories and clearing them but what happens next? As life generally provides the answer, it came for me during yoga teacher training.
We were discussing archetypes that yoga teachers exhibit and it touched something within me that had been hidden for a while. A long while. I came out of the training remembering my fascination and admiration for Carl Jung, the psychoanalyst who first wrote about archetypes. In graduate school, his psychological theory was the one that deeply spoke to me, so some of that profound explanation of the human psyche returned as I mulled over the class.
Jungian archetypes are universal symbols that originate in the collective unconscious. Archetype means original pattern. I like to think of archetypes as containers holding patterns of being. Jung defined twelve primary types and suggested that each of us has one that dominates our personality but others might also have influence.
The twelve and what they seek are: Ruler–Control; Artist–Innovation; Sage–Knowledge; Innocent–Safety; Explorer–Freedom; Rebel–Liberation; Hero–Mastery; Wizard–Power; Jester–Pleasure; Everyman–Belonging; Lover–Intimacy; Caregiver–Service.
While we might resonate with one more than others, chances are that we find many of these archetypes manifesting within our psyche in some way.
So, back to the yoga teaching training…we had a wonderful discussion about archetypes and the qualities that define them. We took turns leading our group in short meditations like teachers use for opening and closing a class and I led the one at the end of our morning discussion on archetypes.
As I closed my eyes and listened for guidance on what to say, I found myself in a beautiful place of openness and listening to the group energy of our class. What followed was a guided meditation on embodying an archetype that spoke to each person and a way to bring that forth into the world as our gift.
One of the instructors, at the end of the meditation, suggested an entire class could be done with the archetype meditation so the following morning that’s what I did…for myself, my personal practice.
During that time I realized how much space had been cleared by allowing the old storylines to fall away and that now I was able to open to and play with different aspects of my psyche. One of the most amazing surprises that resulted from the practice was realization that the many years of study and participation with a group from the UK that works with the Qabalah was preparing me for work in the world. It wasn’t just a spiritual study to learn. It was a spiritual study to experience and put into practice in the world.
Having more inner space allowed me to clearly see the skills that have been honed through many years of meditation, study and ritual. And to realize those skills learned were not just about study, personal power or personal mastery. The skills gained were leading me to a deeper ability to bring the work of my soul through into physical manifestation with clarity, humility, love and deep compassion.
Without doubt, this was the second most powerful yoga practice I’ve ever done. (The first one was when I was with humpback whales 90 miles off the coast of the Dominican Republic and they led me through a purple fire of initiation…you can read about that in Cosmic Whales: Mystical Stories from the Sea).
As I have worked diligently on releasing the old stories over the past month…oh, let’s be honest–I’ve been working on this for decades….the recent clearing has opened the way to embody powerful archetypes that come directly from the collective unconscious. And the key is to embody and learn from these symbols and be flexible, non-grasping. Allow the power to come through but don’t become attached to it. Learn from it, use it to help manifest whatever your soul mission is, and then be open and flexible for other archetypes to teach us as we open to embody them.
So we clear the old stories and realize our families rarely are what we think we need and often are the sources of great pain as we push against them to grow into our full potential. Yet a friend of mine reminded me many years ago: the family you chose before you incarnated is here to help you grow into your potential…they offer you resistance, something to push against so your growth is more rapid, deeper. And so even though we might grieve what we thought we never had, perhaps we had something even better…other souls willing to challenge us to become more fully who we truly are.
We learn self-care, we learn how to nurture and love ourselves and we learn to refuse to allow further abuse to ourselves–from our self or others– all with appreciation and gratitude for the lessons learned. And we walk forward knowing that as we open to the inner space, our ability to embody who we truly are grows with every old storyline we drop, even the one about being an orphan surrounded by a complete family.