A handful of things all together:
The chance to go camping. Seeing the land roll out around me. Watching the stars pop out against the black sky. Black sky in Oklahoma! Listening to Caroline Myss's The Power of Prayer. Trying to be brave. Understanding I have no control. Do I understand this?! Understanding I am here by grace. Understanding that I can give that back. Seeing how I'm easily threatened and primarily fearful; seeing how I can provoke this in others. Asking for our common demons to be at peace. Even more, please feel welcome. Offer them their favorite drinks! Build the most comfortable lounges, complete with soft, elegant blankets in the deepest emerald green. But modify for their tastes. Name those feelings. Each and every one. Is breathing out light supposed to be cold and white or warm and yellow? I don't know yet. Remember humility! Who do you think you are, Courtney? When I thought I was doing it on my own, I was so naive. Others were carrying me. And I feel more confident now that I can carry someone in return. But I will never know how or when; so many things are not mine to know. I had mistakenly staked ground on the land of knowing like a colonist. And what about faith? What about being whole-hearted? How some others settle on something that feels hard and cynical, but carries a sense of humor that attracts me, but still feels sad. Like a mask, in some sense. What about me wanting to run away? What about commitment? Making mistakes. Learning how to fail. Failing and failing and letting that be a way to open up. How telling everything that I never wanted to stay for a while helps. How years of reading The Language of Letting Go and More Language of Letting Go finally made me realize, "It just seems like a lot of letting go." "Yes, it is." And I easily slip into self-pity: I am living in the wrong time, there has to be a place for me. What brave person hasn't seen the end of times or the end of a way or the end; what brave person hasn't seen the demons? Was their time the wrong time for them? No. How my place is the human condition. How my time has been steeped in self-absorption and me first and if I were doing it right then I'd be successful; my dreams would be coming true! How these are lies! How under each wish is a deeper yearning, Martha Beck tells me (and I believe her). Our wishes may not come true, but our yearnings will. How year two of my life plan has stalled but I have been able to name my yearnings for the first time. My place is around me now; I am in my place right now. My life will not happen to me down the road. It is for the living right now. There is space for this. It's in the green flatland (don't be ignorant; don't ignore the fracking silos right by the fat cows). It's in the neon orange sunset (vibrant from the air pollution). It's in what scares me and the yearnings of my soul (the same and the same). To finally name what is happening: a spiritual journey.
