We Stood At The Top...
‘Well...', I said as we jogged along the ridge around the circumference of Pantokrator once again… ‘What a lot of me ‘wants’ is to withdraw, and simply live a contemplative life…’ I laughed, ‘But, I have been saying this since I was twenty years old… And so far it hasn’t been where my inner ‘work’ and inquiry has lead me…’
Anadi agreed… ‘Yes, me too, it’s the life I’ve always craved, but my ‘inner work’ has not lead me there either…
And this said by a man who spent much time on Ashrams in India over twenty years ago…
I worked with a client once who had been a Buddhist monk for twelve years, when the time came for change…
The monks who wanted to stay within the solitude of the lifestyle, away from society, were ‘sent’ out into the world to live a spiritual life in ‘the market place’… And those that wanted to come out into the world were encouraged to contemplate some more…!
I have always yearned - at one level - for a withdrawal from everything…!
But, my overrididng commitment has been to trust in the clearing of the limiting mental processes, the shifting of the blocks in my energy field... To commit to constantly inquiring into ‘who am I’, and know that through these inner practices, my path will reveal itself in front of me….
And it does just that… In the last three years in the opening up before me, I find I am living as a ‘digital nomad’ travelling the globe with Anadi…
I noticed when I was a very young woman, that I could ‘make things happen’, and that in general I could ‘go for what I wanted’, and more or less ‘get it’…!
But - I also discovered that 'making things happen', and 'going for what I wanted', wasn’t always the best path for me…
I often had to unmake them… and unravel what I’d thought I’d wanted!
I became more wary of my keen 'I know this is definitely what I want’s…’! I was so convincing too, that I would be slightly surprised that others supported my latest ‘decision’, when I wasn’t entirely sure inside…
I soon recognized that trusting and doing my inner work, was in truth all that was required… Especially as I saw how contagious my enthusiasm was… Others would join me on the path that I thought I ‘wanted’, and was ‘making happen’… Until I saw it wasn’t the best path after all, and certainly not always for my growth…
The irony of this was that this contradiction existed in my core drives; running and romantic relationships… !
I felt that I was born to run and born to learn more about the true nature of love… And yet my mind and my desires got well and truly in the way on many occasions…
As we ran around the summit of Pantokrator, along our beautiful path this morning - our ‘therapy path’ - the place we go deeper into our own understanding and letting go; we both said that we recognize how much we have discovered there really isn’t any planning to be done, other than the obvious responses to life unfolding…
When shall we take the washing to the laundry…?
What day shall we collect our race numbers…?
Booking of flights, and appointments and living accommodation…
This ‘planning’ is born of the path opening up and of following our inner voice.
The difference to ‘making things happen’, is subtle…
Yesterday as I sat here a nun passed by; she stopped and was speaking with Lucia and Denise and I could not hear everything she said; but I did see her sweep her hands across the sky and heard her quoting the passage from Matthew’s gospel
‘Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them….’
We were running right to the summit of Pantokrator today, the birds were swooping around us, as I bent to do up my shoelace a little ladybird crossed my path… The wild flowers, the grasses, the rocky stony path, the enduring nature of the landscape and the pinnacle of Pantokrator still, silent, immoveable and strong…
We stood at the top….
Our only purpose was to run there and then run down again…
I run to let running take me where it will, to become the running and gradually over the years to understand the dichotomy of ‘aiming to run’, versus letting the running reveal the path to me…
Running has been my nemesis and my salavation…
Taking me into the mind and the desire to run fast to become immortal, as opposed to leading me to freedom of the step and the next and the next….
