Recently, as many of you have undoubtedly noticed, I have been working to improve the visibility of that part of my life that helps me to pay the mortgage. I could simply have said here: “Building my business” or “Increasing my marketability”. And those things would have some truth. But today, as I pondered this part of my Journey, I realized that I have something to express that is not clearly, cleanly encompassed by those familiar phrases.

(One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice–)

I have spent a great deal of these last 15 years looking closely at my life and deciding what works and what does not. What has been success and what has been failure. Not always an easy, comfortable or pleasant Journey. One which has often had me feeling squirmings and crunchings in my belly.

(though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. “Mend my life!” each voice cried.)

It is no longer possible for me to differentiate my “job” from my “Journey”. For me, a Journey is a path of light, often visible only to the Journeyor. And truly, what else is there? My job on this planet, in this lifetime, is to become aware of my Spirit-lighted path and to walk it. Simply. Only. It is not my job to look for, worry about or judge any Path but my own. Or to seek from others acceptance of my Path.

(But you didn’t stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible.)

And yet… I live here, on a material planet, full of bills, responsibilties & social paradigms. And what a siren song this social media soup! What sweet & sugary snacks, these apps & shiny glossy high tech toys! What tangy teases, the apparent successes of others!  ”Draw me a map!”, I say, “Show me how it is done!” I shout, “Give me your secrets, oh Wise Ones!” I implore, gleefully, as though those things were winning lottery tickets that I could have if only I got the RIGHT sequence… pattern… people… places… look… group… identity…

Good Goddess, tie me to the Mast. Please.

(It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind,)

There is a balance. I am a child of Light & Earth combined. I live on a material plane, kept safe by the necessary, annoying and ever present voice of Ego. Striving for my entire life toward that Bright Light of the Creator, with my feet anchored firmly on sweet Mother Earth. I am duality. I am something not completely of Light or Earth, but a new thing that celebrates & makes manifest the Sacred Union of both.

 It is very important to have the support, advise and affirmations of others. To surround myself with those whose lives I strive to entrain with. Important to look at the Journey of those who are on some part of the Spiral where I (think) I wish to be.

(that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do–)

But I cannot forget, lest I lose the Light that guides my Path, that the Chairman Chair-Entity of the Board lives within myself, whispering quietly, patiently, sweetly. And only I can hear it, and only for myself. And that finally… It’s the Journey inward that really counts.

Many thanks to Mary Oliver, unwitting and unknowing member of my board, for the poem within this blog- “The Journey”