Returning from one last stroll through the old neighborhood, revisiting everything I was, that day I also dreamed about everything I never knew I wanted to be.
In looking back, I remember it tasted a little like Kimchee on wild rice: sweet, sour, hot, sticky and salty, shocking at first yet just the right blend of texture and spice.
I remember too, how I used to stand at the top of the stairs, waiting for something or someone to push me down.
I didn't trust myself to go any further then and certainly didn't trust the Universe to make sure I was safe now.
Usually when I tumbled apathetically and reluctantly, I found myself only part way down those stairs with minor cuts and bruises, whimpering and crawling back up.
It was all a lovely little victim routine and I was really good at pretending I knew what that basement looked like even though I'd never been all the way.
All projection, all made-up, plain and simple.
Honestly, I still really liked toiling endlessly each day to make everything look perfect.
Who needed the ease and flow of Universal rhythms and support anyway? I was assured by my past experience that effort was a way of life, no way around it.
I found out later that effort and manifesting are really two different things.
Besides, ever striving to set things in motion had its benefits.
And I could practically pinpoint each one of those benefits and situations from grammar school to adulthood, all the way through the time I was 43 years old.
Up until that point, I usually got exactly what I wanted in this very premeditated and goal-oriented manner, until one day it slowly stopped.
And even though this train had been arriving for nearly a decade, I continued to use all of my learned controls; at least I gave it my best shot.
There was one thing to which I had not adjusted.
The stakes were gradually getting higher at the same rate of speed the train was breaking; my desires were morphing and suddenly it seemed, I wanted intangibles.
I couldn't outline these desires, nor could I draw practical boxes in which to store them any longer.
If I couldn't organize them, how could I possibly create them? By the time the train reached this particular station, there was no place left to go but into as total a surrender as was possible in the realm of my current grasp.
I was so tired of controlling my breath and heartbeat anyway, I sat down to rest, falling asleep on the platform, and missed the next departure.
It was hot and dry in this place, yet I stayed.
I tried to leave and couldn't.
Believe me, I tried everything.
By the following Summer I ached for my past because it was familiar, and I cried deeply for the loss of it.
In fact, all I could do was mourn the ideas and mental constructs I'd been forced to leave behind.
My style of mourning was anger, resistance, and even rage at God.
I wasn't mad at any person, though I was incredibly angry that I'd hopped off that train and could not see one single positive thing about my life.
That was a long, hot summer.
Waking up one morning in late August, though, I felt alive in a very profound way.
My heart beat rhythmically all on its own.
Imagine that! The idea of letting go had never been a constant companion; so here, all this time gone by and I was finally ready to begin the real journey.
As I tossed away my effigy, the residual mists of the past lifted.
I could see an archway of trees marking a path I'd never walked before.
My heart leaped.
And yet, my mind was distressed, trying desperately to override the new and spontaneous soul command.
It was more aggressively than a Spring breeze off the edge of the fog funneling through the Golden Gate.
Now up and buzzing around me like the frantic whining of a small tornado, I was certain I was caught inside a choice I would regret, one that I wouldn't have made with all my usual old tools.
I could mutiny no more; my soul had taken back the wheel.
"What if I loose everything?" I screamed inside with worry as clothing was torn from my body in that whipping wind.
Standing at the gateway to what felt like certain death, I allowed myself the extra moment to debate the merits of entry.
"Am I crazy...
no, who wouldn't go in?" Fear.
The perfect gargoyle of self-deception.
Ignoring the monster, I awkwardly walked through into complete darkness.
I immediately looked upward, frightened and ravenously breathing in moist air as though I'd been buried in a dusty old ghost town for several lifetimes.
As my eyes adjusted, I noticed a spot of sunlight breaking through a canopy of giant trees--a kaleidoscope of chaotic branches way, way up there.
It was dizzying and I spun around as if in a 1960's television time machine; a clumsy shift in dimension.
Too much sudden lightness, I hung my head to let the blood flow again and began shuffling through the entropy of leaves on the ground.
I devoured the smells as I churned them up.
"This path seems easy," I noticed as it spiraled around huge red trunks.
Clover blanketed the ground, and for a moment I glanced upward at the almost white lichen, noting it looked more like a sea weed, swagging from branch to branch.
I knew it only grew in completely clean air.
Although totally alone and uncertain in there, the easy walking pace and lack of physical struggle effortlessly transported me further into the trees and deeper into my soul.
As I wandered around inside myself for a while, I reflected on my body in nature, nature in relation to the planet, the planet in relation to the Universe.
All fractals, tiny bits of energy linked to something big and unknown.
I saw no one and nothing familiar; in fact, there was no one around.
It was all too quiet and very esoteric, pushing heavily on my existential panic button.
Greedily I sucked in every molecule of courage from the air around me, using all senses to listen to my soft spoken inner voice.
When I listened, truly listened there in the woods, I found myself honoring this place of angst, dancing with the elemental sounds to the music of the leaves as they rustled in the wind.
It was all both new and old.
It was odd, yet I was curiously at home.
All the tree and plant bodies blurred as I spun and moved to the rhythms of Earth's tides and the beat of my heart.
Soon I saw nothing; I heard nothing; I only felt the precious bond of my soul swaying with those trees, standing on that ground, inhaling those fresh smells.
No effort, no pull, no edge, no beginning, no end.
I remembered diving into the pool at night as a teenager; diving in, somersaulting, floating and unfolding under the water, no controls, no strokes.
It was total freedom.
Being in this place reminded me of those summers so long ago.
Too quickly I was back at the gateway, now looking up into the heavens.
A light rain washed over my face and I smelled the dust turn to mud between my toes.
I just stood there without poignancy, no thoughts, only neutrality.
Then luminosity breathed in me like a zephyr, imprinting its vivid mandala of life.
Birth and death were at its core-the natural rhythms of inspiration and expiration, and its signature was identical to the fire burning inside me these last years.
I felt the sun, the wind, the rain and the soil, all alive inside me.
All the power of the elements and I was still just a small bit, a drop, yet more than that, a vessel for the whole ocean.
In that moment the last vestiges of my shield was melted then liquefied by a surge of inner heat, feeding the ground beneath my feet.
I finally remembered why I stood there, naked, cloaked only in my own austerity, wisdom and devotion.
Some time has passed and I am still scrapping around in the unknown shadows in the midst of this continuing journey.
I am more resolved, or at least a bit more accustomed and integrated within myself now.
I know my journey will meander, overflow and even dry up, like a river winding through the seasons.
I can see more clearly the beauty of my soul's itinerary along the very non-linear line of time and finally, at least in this moment, I am okay right where I am.
Journey into the unknown, opening your body to spirit through deep self-exploration, healing and ultimately self-mastery.
Unearth your courage, as this journey will shine light on your shadow, bringing forth the bright and multiple facets of your essence.