Altered plans
It’s difficult to alter plans. I am not sure if it is stubbornness or perseverance which dominates the angst behind the alter.
I leave St Walburg in a few hours. A call from my Louisville gallery has offered a nice out, outing, to take me away ahead of time. But I honestly didn’t need an excuse, it’s convenient nonetheless. I do not want any of the sisters, the gracious hosts here, to feel my early departure was their cause.
When I realized yesterday evening that the angst I’d been feeling all day was due to the fact of this place, begin not an immersion in the monastic atmosphere but simply a guest house on the grounds of such a place, and therefore translatable right back to the environment of my own home, I knew I had to go there. Home.
This was enlightenment enough to make the journey-commitment worthwhile. I do not want, did not, loose the faith in this as I slept the night through.
There is a place for me. This is the anxiety I face in altering plans. There is a place for me, a new place, an adjusted place, not only when I am done with this sabbatical year, but in and through this sabbatical year as well.
This notion helps me grab hold of my grounding. It helps me see the EncaustiCastle with new partially cracked eye lids. It helps me feel the roots of my feet grow a little bit deeper, and to not fear the unknown I am still standing amongst.
I have given myself 12 months. A year to shuffle through, shake out, and re-piece the puzzle of my life back together. This time with a bit clearer picture of the end image in sight. Age has something to do with this clearer image, but as well, simple faith. Faith that is a mere sense of something that’s down deep trustworthy, and with enough surrounding reality supporting the sense, the will to plunge forward into the unknown.
I realize it has to be this triune of faith, practical support, and strong will, for the ability to plunge forward to take place.
I’ve had a shaking day. Perhaps today will continue it and I’ll have a back to back dual shake. No matter. I’ve had enough experience to know I will not stand on shaking ground forever. And the shaking goes a long way to till the soil my feet are rooted in. New nourishment can seep in and around my roots this way….
I go home in a few hours no surer of the experiences I’ve just had and continue through within these altered plans, but nonetheless committed to stand tall and forge on, to what sprouts up on the other side~ Live to wonder. Wander~
I read your postings every morning and I wonder. I sit here alone in my living room, dark, no sound except the occasional car or truck driving past down on the road, no doubt leaving early for the daily commute. But I wonder. I wonder is it because I am getting up earlier these days, unable to sleep, that I am contemplating in this silence? Or is it something more profound, more of a soul searching? Yet, I realize that my entire life I have been searching for something, someone. I seem to never be satisfied with exactly what I have even though I try to practice gratitude. And yet I am grateful for what I do have; all those things we sometimes take for granted. Our children, a home, my health, a loving husband. But why do I search? Is it that I am plagued with this feeling of angst, anxiety? Or is this just part of growing older and trying to make sense of this mystery of life? I am grateful for your posts each week. It helps me realize that there are others that are struggling with some of these questions also. From the outside you appear to have everything and yet, you are taking time away from your commitments and doing some soul-searching too. I think sometimes that I can find the answers in my art. But in reality, all that does is give me more questions. I see the unending possibilities that are there. I see more paths, more truths to be found. And finding these truths take wandering. Not just wondering. I do my meditations each day, I practice my routine of yoga (union) not only the physical portion of it but the mental and the spiritual. Yoga is a joining of body, mind, and spirit. I question, always question. But I read how important curiosity is in life. And I am definitely that: curious. About so many things, so many people, so many places. I thank you for awakening me in whatever capacity I can be wakened. I am at least more aware of some of the questions. Maybe the answers will never come. Maybe that is part of the journey. Maybe the trick is to just keep searching, questioning, working on myself until one day I reach the end and realize that I have been deeply rewarded with a mind full of wonder and have the opportunity to wander aimlessly in my mind when I am no longer physically able to wander with my body. One day this body will cease to exist. But my mind and spirit will live on forever when I join the stars.