Walking Beyond The Divide

For the past few years I have been constantly thrilled by walking—by going out and looking for signs. It is a thrill to see how the seemingly external world seamlessly comments upon and provides guidance for the inner world.

In Nature Speak, Ted Andrews suggests walking in nature and being fully conscious, noting that everything that appears to you has great significance. What are the colours that stand out today? The colours have great symbolism and can speak volumes to you. What animals do you hear or see? What plants catch your eye? What about the contours of the land, that too has significance? You can see how it feels to you and also research the symbolism, the habits and properties of what came to you and see how it fits.

Robert Moss, in Sidewalk Oracles, suggests playing what he coined “sidewalk tarot.” Setting your intention to find out more about a theme or a direct question and then turning it over to the Universe. Then going out and taking the first unusual thing you see as a direct answer to the question you put—playing with synchronicity.

What is the guidance coming to us and where does it come from? I like to think of the Universe as a sea of energy that is constantly responding to what we put out. I view it as streams of swirling energy that coalesce around each of us in response to our own energetic radiations. We attract certain parts of that sea to us in accordance with our resonance. That is why setting intention is so important.

I also think of it as my Full Self in action, drawing to me what I most need to learn, grow or just purely enjoy and delight in at certain moments. The Full Self for me can have many names, Higher Self, Divine Self, Infinite Self. It is the part of me that goes beyond the Personality and is more aligned with my true purpose, it also contains much more of me than the physical frame of a human body could contain.

But I find momentarily, rather than as a constant experience, that when I align myself and lean into my Full Self, it is in turn aligned with Source. Thus filters down the awareness that it is all part of the same whole, from the graffiti on the wall, the hand that held the spray paint can, myself standing on the dirt track seeing the writing, the dirt under my feet, the air that I breathe, the light shining on my face. It is all part of the beautiful breath of Divine consciousness and we are all made of that very substance and thus are all connected.

How wonderful to be able to remain within this sense of knowing, but my experience is that it is in flashes. Often it is an intuitive awareness, but however it comes I’m sure by sensing it, holding the intention for it, enjoying all the signs along the path, then it will continue to expand.

Good Enough

Walking without heart, the body moving, a core of muted panic contained at the solar plexus. I felt my body grow heavy with a growing sense of soul weariness, a sadness so familiar in its tones and the stories and actions it seeks to draw to itself. I could at least sense how out of the moment I was. And then the leaf shone where my dog was sniffing. Slowly and gently ushering me back to the present.

A little boat of light sails through the darkness and the shadows are but passing reflections. There was beauty in the image, a gift given for looking, for grounding if only for a split second.

The root of the feelings came to me as I walked on, born as is often the case, from the deep sense of "I am not good enough." This time something I read had triggered it. It was a beautiful piece of Native American Indian wisdom, http://www.ilhawaii.net/~stony/lore134.html But something inside of me had held onto it to use as a kernel to feed a sense of lack.

The wisdom it held of being utterly in what we do and what we create, taking our time and not rushing, though wonderfully inspiring had been twisted into a self recrimination. It was so subtle that it took over an hour for me to realise what had happened. Some part of me was berating all the times I have behaved contrary to this wisdom, rushing to the end, pushing things to get to the end, though there was little satisfaction in the end. In truth, I have changed greatly in this, but the recriminations persisted.

The thought pattern had been insidious otherwise I could have questioned this voice as I am being taught to and asked it: "Do you come from within my Divine Essence?" I would have been met with silence and been freed from carrying it onwards.

The wisteria spoke in its place with a beautiful flash of sun-caught colour above the shining green ivy. One tendril swirled in a spiral and it was the spiral that caught my eye, bringing to mind my children, their love of drawing spirals.

"I am enough," I thought to myself. "I am completely enough, I am all I need to be in this moment."

How easy it is to forget this and to chip away and erode myself. The brick wall stuck out. There it was, worn away, rough and misshapen with white lichen, like paint, now covering it. That is how I get when I forget and get caught up in the negative thought tramlines. I become eroded and covered, choked in the negativity that generates more of itself.

A leaf caught my eye, rounded with one point, nestled into another leaf. How funny, I thought to myself, I would never think to berate the leaf for not yet having reached its potential of five points. It is in the art of becoming and it is beautiful as it is right now. How silly to do this to myself!

As I came home to write this up I realised that my sense of lack had begun earlier. I had received an email about supporting the Earth Healing Gathering this September in Turkey. I had donated something and thought how just sending energy in whatever form to something that resonated with me was lovely to do. http://www.earthhealinggathering.org and http://pupakhaghighi.weebly.com/earth-healing-gathering-2016.html

But sadly it had fed into a sense of lack. Studying the Native American Indian course I am doing had made me think how I contribute to the Earth's pain through my excess in living, my car, the house, etc. Again, I hadn't noticed the negativity, but it ran rampant. On the walk I had picked up some pieces of rubbish and put them in the bin, I had done it with love with a gentle thought towards the Earth.

So there is an easy immediate way to help, a little action at a time. I can smile now, for I can ask to be shown the way, I can do what I can and make myself open and loving to do more when I can. I can realise the discomfort may be a precursor to change, but blame and guilt will not help in any way.

What came to me on my walk is that if I think that I am not good enough, then nothing is good enough, not my children, a stone,  a dog, a bird, the sky, the sunshine, not even the Earth. Nothing is good enough or truly matters for as long as I do not embrace myself wholeheartedly with love and wonder and tenderness.

I have six messaged alarms on my phone to remind me of this and I am shifting slowly, one ring and one message at a time!