It Is In Daring To Set Out...
I was just about to write my blog... Anadi had put a pot of coffee on to aid the creative flow, when my friend and client Justin, called me from the UK with good news... He has a new job...!
We have just talked excitedly for ten minutes, and celebrated the journey he has been on to secure a position that is perfect for him...
Justin has had to show fortitude and persistency and courage to keep striving for what he knew was possible - as well as along the way, overcome feelings of disappointment when things were not going to plan.
We will all likely recognise this journey... If we have ever wanted to attain something and has not come immediately, and even more challenging, seems to be taking longer than we thought it would!
There is a saying that goes... 'An overnight success takes ten years'! It is my belief that the more we recognise that the journey towards the desired job, or lifestyle or relationship or sporting achievement is not always linear; then it becomes easier to go with flow and to be prepared to do the work required to clear whatever it is that is holding us back from our hearts calling... Because sometimes we have inner blocks holding us back from our success, and these need attention and unravelling....
Sometimes though, we might even discover that we were going towards something we believed we wanted, but which was in truth driven by what our parents, our friends, our society or our education deemed we 'should ' want, and then even our own ego can become identified with this plan...
But if we keep going, and if we are willing to be vulnerable, and to seek support and help as we journey, then we will always reach our destination even if it looks different to what we imagined it would...
One of my favourite poems - Ithaka by C P Cavafy speaks of our journeying.
The poem starts thus...
'As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery....'
And finishes like this...
'Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean'
It is in daring to set out that we discover what we needed to discover...
Yesterday evening in the gym at Gros Islet Jay, the Olympic boxer who also loves to dance, was there again.... He suggested and showed me aligning and balancing exercises which I loved doing.
He was instructing me and also another woman in the gym, Heidi too, and as we both exercised away, he would break into dance and song and occasional shadow boxing; so light and graceful in his 6'3 inch strong boxers body...
This morning I was down at Rodjas gym working out with Cherisse, who is a trainer there, as Rodja was on the radio again... I recognise that the whispering in my ear for the past three years since I injured my left knee, saying 'go back to basics' is at last what I am doing.
I have given myself the space to re address the fundamental movements I need to be strong in, to run free; and in this space my body is strengthening and aligning... I now recognise the aspect of me that was afraid that I was irretrievably crocked; my left side too weak, and because this voice of fear is gone, in its place is an excitement of possibilities ahead....
I walked back up the road today from a fun session with Cherisse of dead lifts and press ups and burpees and an agony abs circuit - to meet Anadi for breakfast and I noticed my inner being is starting to dream a bit... Thoughts of races coming in to my consciousness... Unbidden and of themselves; 'I wonder what I can run...? Could I - would I run another road Marathon...?
I was wandering along in this reverie - a man was walking towards me; we smiled at one another...
As we passed, he turned and looked at me... 'Please would you be my lover...' he said.
I smiled and we both carried on walking on our separate paths; me to meet my lover Anadi for breakfast, and him to his own destination ....
