Do you ever feel you are travelling to a destination “unknown?”
My boat sails upon a starry night and heads for Destination Unknown.
Do you ever feel like that? That you are sailing on a boat and while you have a vague idea of where you are sailing to, you are still sailing into the Vast Unknown. The Vast Unknown of Possibilities, Challenges, Constants and Decisions.
That is how I am feeling at the moment. The Vast Unknown is there right in front of me and I feel that I am only a tiny unrelated speck. Will what I do matter? Will how I act matter? Will my decision to go left or right really matter?
I have images that flash before me. Ideas of what might be in front of me. The waves show pictures. The stars twinkle ideas. My heart holds tight, and then somehow it gently breathes out. The Vast Unknown still invites me and calls me.
Do you ever feel like that?
Do you ever feel that you are watching, waiting, hoping, acting, moving and staying still all at the same time?
That you know that moving forward is travelling in the right direction. That your boat has been made specifically for this particular journey. That everything about it has been created for this moment in time, and yet there is still anxiety and fear. Or is it uncertainty and worry?
Looking at the supplies - will there be enough?
Looking at the mast - will it be strong enough?
Looking at my clothes - will I be warm enough?
Looking in the galley - will there be food enough?
Looking in my heart - will I be strong enough? brave enough? soft enough? gentle enough? patient enough?
enough
enough
enough…
Enough. What is enough? What makes life Enough? And in the Enough are we content? And in the Enough can we breathe out?
So my boat sails as all these thoughts blow past me. There is change ahead. There is beauty ahead. There is adventure and life and wonder and dreams ahead. My compass is swaying too much to tell me which way ahead is the right way. The co-ordinates are shaking too much to read the natural force of the land. Have I sailed out into a land so unknown that I am unable to feel safe?
or am I sailing into the lands of my heart where a compass will flicker as my heart will take over?
I put my hand up for this journey many many years ago. I put my hand up and volunteered for this journey. A journey that I knew would take me away from the Safe-Waters-of-life.
Yes, the Safe-Waters would lead me to islands and lands of wonder and beauty, however my heart yearned for These particular far away islands. These places where the road is less travelled,
where the heart is the only true guide and where the vastness is so big that it feels as though it swallows you rather than welcomes you.
And yet I am here, in this absolutely exquisite boat with both sails up sailing strongly and surely.
My life has made this boat. With my experiences and hands, choices and constants I made the boat that I call home. Oh yes, I have sat with wondrous boat-builders. Masters in their field. Long years of learning and understanding, of relearning and practicing, of perfecting and stumbling, of philosophy and skills, of sitting quietly and being by myself, of working with my hands and mind, of journeying deep into my heart and soul, of creating and making, of writing and expressing, of...
The path less travelled teaches so much and more.
And while I sail by myself the wisdom of my fore-bearers are still heard and felt in the joints of the timber, in the way I set the sail, in the way I balance upon the stern, in every knot I make and every time I read the wind, the stars the waves.
And so I sail into the Vast Unknown with my heart to keep me company and, yes my Doubts to tangle the knots. Why I wonder do the Doubts want to sail with me? Why I wonder did I bring them along? Why I wonder have I let them keep me company for that long - as long as my life is old?
Are they are there to keep me real?
Are they are there to keep me on track?
Are they are there to humble me?
Are they there to remind me of my journey?
Doubt. Doubt sometimes brings Fear along too and hides Fear in the hull. I saw Fear the other day. Fear and Doubt. They make me sad and unsure. They make me double guess my hearts truth. They make me stumble and trip. They make me pour the kettle over and over again.
Long nights we sit together. Tea drunk and left cold. Wind howling and body freezing. Rain pouring and coats drenched. Waves tossing. And the night is only getting darker.
I chose this journey. I learnt all I needed to before I set sail. And I was told I would learn more on the journey. Of cause.
There is no book. Some can be read more than once over and over again. Some are in another language and that language needs to be learnt first. There is no instruction book when the waves are so big and the dark is so dark and the Doubts and Fears want to untie all the knots.
There is nothing in the Vast Unknown. In the Wild Tempest and Raging Waters. There is NOTHING.
And yet
there
is
Something
There is the wood.
There is the water.
There are the stars.
There is the wind.
There is the cold.
There is the wet.
There are the knots.
There are the sails.
There is the fear.
There is the knowing.
There is the movement.
There is the hours upon hours of previous practice that now just flows in my hands, my heart, my body. Without thinking. Just Knowing. For when I think I stumble. When I think now when the rain is making seeing hard and the howling wind is making hearing impossible, to think takes too much energy. To Know becomes Natural.
So I go back to the Natural. And in the Natural there is the Constant. That innate rhythm that beats - like my heart, like the waves. The waves that come in and the waves that go out. They are constant. Even though they are big. They are Constant and in their Constant are like Stalwart Guardians holding me safe and tall.
And I sail. Sail into the Vast Unknown and I wonder if Doubt and Fear will always be my sail mates, or if when I sail into the Vast Unknown I will understand them more, maybe find them their true home, and then when we meet again it maybe quite different to now.
In honour of your own journey
into
Destination Unknown.
I recorded a Chat and Meditation about Change and Constant - this mediation may add something more to the words above. I invite you to listen.
In honour of your journey,