Traveling
Mercies
“Not I,
nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must
travel it by yourself.
It is not
far. It is within reach.
Perhaps
you have been on it since your were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it
is everywhere—on water and land.”
Walt
Whitman (excerpt from Leaves of Grass)
In the introduction to
the Fall, 2018 Parabola, editor/publisher, Jeff Zaleski, writes, “Our
life is a journey and there are many homes to reach, during this life
and also at its end and perhaps beyond.” We have many homes
along the way—ones we think we will occupy forever; yet,
unexpectedly, we find ourselves packing up and moving on. Most of us
feel that we have arrived home when we find a mate and have a family.
We spend a long passage on our journey involved with all the
trappings of that joining, and that rearing. Sometimes our coupling
lasts a lifetime—my parents were married for fifty-four years
before my father died. Sometimes, it lasts only a little while, and
breaks up badly. Our moving-on from such loss may take a while, and
we embark anew on our journey with lasting wounds—baggage we didn't
expect to carry.
Finding a new home after
the loss of the old one is never easy. Many of us try to quickly
recapture what we had before, only without the flaws of the last one.
That almost never works out well. When we are able to hold off
plugging that gaping wound with something new, and just sit with
ourselves, or in this case, walk the road alone for a while until we
know who we are and where we're headed, we then have a solid
foundation on which to build a new home. Our next home will be
different from the one we lost, because we will be different.
I don't believe our
journey ends at death. In fact, I had a visit with my parents in a
dream this very week. My father is making interesting wooden
furniture unlike any I have ever seen. Mother has a garden, and they
both look healthy and happy. From time to time, our ancestors visit
us in dreams just to let us know they're doing well and still busy.
Souls sometimes join and rejoin over eons. They have work to do
together in this realm and the next.
Our journey is a solitary
one in the end, but it is not without the love and support of fellow
travelers—both those living in body and those living in spirit. The
energy of our departed loved ones never dissipates. Their journey,
and ours, continue on parallel tracts, sometimes intersecting,
sometimes separate. Our mates, friends and lovers are also traveling
companions. Our journeys converge, we travel together and learn from
one another, and at some point, we part.
Traveling mercies to you
today. “May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always
at your back. Until we meet again, may God hold you in the hollow of
God's hand.” (Irish blessing, adapted)
In the Spirit,
Jane
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