More from the Mountain

I continue to glow from my weekend. It is so powerful to me to be among other leaders, each person struggling with their own vision, each person loving and supporting the others, each striving to follow their heart's desire.

During the weekend, we took turns leading a mat trip (part of the format of a Shalom retreat), and being lead. Each leader, people who are trained, wise, adult, capable, when they got on the mat, went into their issues, and cried, or wrestled with their relationship with their mother, or raged against a significant other, or whatever. The lesson to me is, that each leader is fully human. We do not resolve all our personal issues before we become leaders - we learn how to be conscious and loving of them, so we can do the same with those we work with. Leaders are on no kind of a pedestal of their own making, because we are all poiently aware of our own vulnerabilities, our own dark side, our own divergence from our values. The thing we learn the most is to love ourselves, and each other, in our imperfection and pain, in our fear and anger, in our shadow and inadequacy. And when we can do that, we can lead, because it is that full acceptance that people need, not the right technique, or the right answer, or the right technique or tool. Those things are great, but as long as we believe we can't be loved until we are fixed, we will never be at peace.

One of my personal revelations this weekend was the concept of being on a journey. I started my personal growth in the recover (12-step) movement - and I still look at my life that way - I am recovering from early childhood abuse and trauma, I am recovering from my dissociation, from wounds and fears and hurts. They see it differently - we are not recovering, we are on a journey. All that has happened to us is part of the journey. This is relevant to our previous discussion on meaning and purpose in life.

Suppose I want to go to the store for eggs. I know my destination, and I know the approximate path I will take. I think of the most efficient route, and set out, each turn predetermed by my plan. I get there, make my purchase, and return home, with each step coreographed in advanced.

Contrast that to going for a walk. I have no predetermed destination, no path other than maybe a vague idea of how to start, no decision made ahead of time about which way I will turn or what I will try to see. As I walk, different things influence me in the moment - a desire to be in the park arises. a street is too busy, and I find I want more quiet, and head for a quieter street. A curiosity comes to me of what is in that graveyard I remember driving by. Each time, in the moment, decisions are made based on what arises within me. I am choosing based on what is within me each moment, with no prior "should", need, destination, goal, or purpose. The walk is now a journey, not a task. When I will look back on it, I may learn something about myself and what I desire, specifically because it was
*not* planned, and because I made my decisions in the moment, as the spirit moved me.

I am thinking, maybe this is where we get purpose in life - not from having some grand goal and plotting our way towards it, but to sensing the flow of life within us, each moment, paying attention, and making decisions based on that inner urge, that small still voice. Our purpose is to do that, to live by that voice, to be a creature in tune with that flow, not to reach a specific destination.

What a relief from the demands I place on myself to be great, to write books that will make me famous, to be the guru, to be a famous Shalom leader, to solve people's problems, heal them, and set them on the right path. If my only chore is to hear the sweet voice within and follow that urge, I still will experience pain on the path, and confusion and grief - but I will be connected with something deep within me that gives me life.

Okay, that's long enough a blog post. I am blessed in many ways - by my dear friends in my community, by discovering Shalom and so many other wonderful supportive groups, by the revelations I have come to in my wanderings, by the individuals in my life that mean so much to me. My thanks to all of them for being there.