Here is the original.
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At some point you reach that moment, not exactly the one you have been striving for, but one that you have been walking towards all along. Seated upon the bench, along the way, perhaps it is easy to understand that this is but one of many such benches, and many have sat here before. In the end, this was not your goal, but here you are, at a place you had not planned to be at when you had first started traveling your spiritual landscape. You’ve been told what lay down this path, and thus far everything is nothing and exactly like the map said it would be. Would the same prove so for the rest of the journey?
But what of the goal, there was clearly one when you started? Since then you have learned that the goal will never be reached if it is the focus, but instead the path should be the goal.
Looking down at worn boots and dusty traveling clothes, the marks of the journey are easy to see and the road though unclear at times can be recalled. Was this what was found? Dirt? The feeling is there, that a wise man or woman would smile knowingly and say that, “It is what is below the grim that has been found.” This is hard to judge as the grim obscures, and it is hard to tell if the flesh, blood, and bone are the same. Maybe at the next stop there will be a tub with some water and maybe a bit of soap.
Now the questioning that started this whole mess has returned, but in a different manner. No longer is the light cast upon the mysterious unanswerable tombs, but unto the volumes of the supposedly given. So that is what this bench is a testament of, how one gets here. All the questions that were sought are like far away dreams compared to the all unknowing, and even the questions themselves are up for scrutiny.
It is not dark out, nor night, nor a dilemma of the soul. Or at least if it is, then the cloak is one well hidden and hard to lift to see truth, a lapwing in wolf’s clothing. For a moment, there it was as if the walking had begun again. Perhaps for a change, instead of chasing the moon as does the sun it would be nice to tend the land a bit, grow some crops, and who knows, maybe even reap the fruit of the now.
Boidh se!
-Spanish Moss
"Lost in a thicket bare-footed upon a thorned path."
3 comments:
Beautifully written and expressed, brother. And so very, very true.
i love this, SM. i especially love your words “It is what is below the grim that has been found.” with the goal being the path and continuing on it, we will forever continue learning.
your post script about being barefoot on a thicket path reminds me of a motorcycle ride i took once. a country girl, i hopped on my brother's little yamaha BAREFOOT and headed for the woods trail. in the night, a major storm had downed a holly tree which had fallen down in the middle of a blind S-curve. i had to choose between a head injury/death with colliding with the tree OR ditching the bike in a dense thicket of thorny shrubs with each branch being 1/2 inch thick and bearing thorns longer than my fingernails. i chose pain over death and the thorns ripped out the skin between my toes. in shock, i gradually regained strength and arighted myself and tried to mount the bike. too weak and bloodied, i decided to rest a bit and just honk the horn in hopes that someone would hear me. the battery drained as i honked that horn in an SOS fashion with the pitch becoming lower and lower. i almost laughed at the dark humor in it. when the battery had died, i heard two bike engines; someone was coming. my cousin and his friend had come to my rescue..... there's a point to this somewhere. Blessed Be.
The phrase, “Lost in a thicket bare-footed upon a thorned path,” comes from a ritual I wrote several years ago. It came to me in a moment of awen, and every since then it has been a piece inspiration for me, with ever changing meaning.
Blessings,
-SM
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