MY OWN WALKING - Journal June 2022

With the best will in the world I am not as equanimous as either I imagine I am, or would wish I was. I can tell myself till I'm blue in the face that it serves no purpose to get mentally tense over the unpredictability of shop takings. Most days these turn out to be OK or Not OK regardless of the degree of internal fretting I've put myself through. It would be so much better if I could hang loose with it all. But that appears to not yet be happening. I remain on some level beyond my current conscious control, too attached, too self identified with there being a beneficial outcome. The beautiful financial sunset at end of each day.

I can start off with a sense of vaguely awakening dread, a fog bound fear for what this day will bring. Emotionally bracing myself to hold and contain this uncertainty over the next hours. All this exists on a gut level of experience. My practice during the day is to pull my mind away from inflaming this further by layering negative personal thoughts onto the bone of it. I can tell myself its far too early to call the nature of the day. I recollect those days when most of our daily sales happen in the space of an hour mid afternoon. I also need to have a task to focus on, cleaning, merchandising or making, something that brings my attention into the moment more. Something that demonstrates a welcoming creative optimism.

We open at 10am, but it's a rare day when our first sale happens the very moment the shop door is put ajar.  It can often be a few hours later before the till springs open for the first time. At that point I breath an inner sigh of relief, ' at least we've taken something' and ' its not going to be a complete disaster'. I appear then to relax into the day, access some equanimity, and be more prepared to let it just unfold. I have still to be aware that my mental attachment can then shift from -' will we take anything today?' - to - 'how much will we take today?' Again having to resist the gravitational pull towards the ideal beneficial future. All this effort of containing and pulling away from unhelpful mental and emotional states, well, this can be tiring.

The underlying emotion, is a disaster filled one, of fear that 'it's all about to go wrong - again'.  This sits in the background waiting to pounce the moment a bad day in the shop is confirmed. This familiar personal story I am better at resisting engaging with these days. Its not rational, I know, and I also know rational ways of dealing with it bounce off like heavy rain on an umbrella. Logic or rationality have their uses, but they can be quite harsh commanders, tending towards ignoring, repressing or burying completely when faced with some intransigent emotional response that will not comply.

Even though one poor days takings don't make a disaster in retail. I can teeter on the edge of responding as if they were. There are days which have for whatever reason proved particularly exhausting. As soon as I'm no longer in the shop, and able to relax at home, a wave of despondent feeling can fall upon me. Its as though that fear of 'it all going wrong- again' will find its moment for being consciously experienced no matter what. When my emotional guard is weaker or vanished for a while, it grasps the opportunity to come up for air. That, is what I've been working with lately. 

What concerns me now as I re-read this is that this doesn't sound like there's much enjoyment or fun to be had. Whilst I don't think that is entirely the case. If I were being honest I do wonder if I allow myself enough space and time for enjoyment and fun to fully emerge into. Perhaps I do spend far too much time in 'battle mode' even to step out of it briefly. Trying to examine these anxious states, how they arise and vanish in closer detail, can, through giving them greater attention, fall into amplifying, reinforcing and justifying there existence. I do appear to lean existentially towards a view of life as being about averting one catastrophe after another. Recent weeks have been additionally physically challenging with a tricky back flare up to manage too. Given favourable circumstances I can lighten up with the best of them.

Yet I am always on the look out for fresh ideas or approaches, a phrase or practice to encourage the cultivation of a different landscape to inhabit. If the gratefulness/blessing practice helps, its because to be truly grateful you have to be contented, satisfied with whatever you have. Dissatisfaction fuels restlessness and fidgeting. To be constantly on the move, searching for contentment somewhere else, other than right here. And if this feels too painfully familiar that I avert my gaze, its because it describes the action of a good deal of my life. Of moving. Mostly away from sources of disaffection. However habitually externalised and focused, dissatisfaction has roots in a sense of oneself. Not content and satisfied with who you are, or have become, you cannot stay still for long. All your memories appear to show you running off towards a new horizon.

Though currently I'm bringing to mind a Taoist phrase - 'To restore the primal wholeness of the mind, one must know how to remain unmoved and innocent.' There is then something in this state of immovable innocence, that seems entirely fitting. It speaks truth through the mirror. Stay put. Take off your filter. Practice without expectation.

So much mental proliferation and fretting is founded on wishful thinking. A feeling that if we believe something strongly enough it will happen. And if we know exactly what will happen, we can manage the future and be in complete control of it. Its essentially a wrong view of how reality works, but a persistent one nonetheless, because it offers a future with hope in it. The possibility of certainty, is always tempting.  

However, to cultivate a state of immovable innocence, of not knowing, seems to be more in line with how things actually are. We cannot know what is just around the corner. A delight, a disaster or an unexpected opportunity. What we believe we know about our past, well that is what we must let go of, be forgetful of. To no longer be always bringing something to mind is to create a space for the state of innocence. A sort of spiritually sourced dementia. A state of not knowing. The absence of any mitigating history, the self justifying stories you tell yourself, the habitual responses, the fixed ways of seeing. To be free of those accretions is to return to a type of innocence I guess.

The Korean teacher Seung Sahn's perennial spiritual injunction was 'only don't know' as any other response would be considered egotistical and hence delusionary. This has associatively brought back to mind Padmasambhava's famous teaching phrase - 'I do not know, I do not have, I do not understand.'  Yeh, tell me about it Vajra Guru!

The most practical way I've found of smoothing turbulent emotional states is to be out in nature. Watching the sun rise in the morning, taking a walk in the countryside, or strolling by the sea. All of which I am truly blessed with easy access to here. So that is not really rocket science.  Though this isn't 'the cure' for anxiety or insecurity, it applies a healing ointment to the scuffed knee of it.

MY OWN WALKING - Journal April / May

Count your blessings while you may - so goes the song - one I used to sing as a prepubescent boy soprano, many many years ago. There are two versions of Count Your Blessings; a late 19th century hymn and a secular popular mid 20th century one, sung by Gracie Fields. Both versions encourage you to recollect the ordinary things in life and to be thankful and grateful for them, particularly when you feel despondent or low in spirits and optimism. The hymn places that gratitude before god from whom such 'blessings' were said to originate. The later version simply asks you to bring your blessings to mind, to place ones present, perhaps more emotionally difficult experience, into a broader perspective.

The idea of life as a 'blessing' is currently resonating with me. I'm finding it useful in shifting the emphasis away from the habitual views I hold to what I've been given -  life as a gift I could to be more consciously grateful for. Brother David Steindl - Rast wrote a book 99 Blessings which extolled ordinary aspects of life that we either take for granted or overlook. I'll post an extract from this after this post 

I guess for some the idea of  'blessings' will be too entwined with the idea of a deity who dispenses them, to be useful to them. Certainly the hymn version of Count your Blessings, makes this clear that 'it will surprise you what the lord has done'. Brother David's - Blessings, however, can be read with or without a deity in mind.  He has very consciously couched them so they don't necessarily require a belief in a divine origin in order to be meaningful or useful. Blessings are given. But the source of them, can be seen as arising from the process of nature, from the interactions of time and space with being, from conditioned co production, from karma, from our interdependence, from the universe, as part of our consciousness interacting with the entire cosmos. God is only one of many possible imagined sources for these blessings.

Brother David regularly reminds you that you need to recognise your blessings in order to be grateful for them. And recognition of blessings is becoming part of my current practice. In last months Journal I was exploring the relationship between appreciation and gratefulness. That it can be hard to see exactly what moves the heart from a basic appreciation to a lively sense of gratitude. After the arising of an appreciation for something, a feeling of being blessed by it sits in the place between that appreciation and the arising of gratefulness and joy. Once one can feel something to be a real blessing, then it becomes possible to take it into ones heart. Gratefulness emerging out of the feeling of having been blessed.

I've been placing this idea of life as a 'blessing' alongside the Buddhist idea of human life as a 'precious opportunity'. In life we are blessed with many precious opportunities, that having a body, mind and consciouness enable to happen. You can endeavour to progress spiritually, to see the true nature of what our life is part of.  First we must appreciate that our own human life is this rare, precious thing, because it is so fragile, fleeting and finite. Our lives arising in the world are akin to planetary alignments or conjunctions, momentarily throwing up consciousness. This blessing freely arrives and equally freely departs.  

Yet, because this comes free and without apparent reason, we can take it for granted. Its easy to drift through life as though its this money tree forever dispensing the wealth of life to be spent, rather than a valuable resource, an endearing yet time limited thing.  Unrecognised blessings can be seen as like a letter, delivered but left unopened on the doormat. Never to be read. Never understood. Never taken to heart. Never opened to life.

MY OWN WALKING - Journal - 11/02/2022

Whilst the Husband was away on a weeks solitary retreat, I stayed as much as possible at home. My general aims;~ to not do shop related work, increase the amount of silence in my day, to not be busy, nor settle into a routine. But you know the form, what you do on the first day goes so well you cut and paste the same programme in for the rest of the week. The desire to be more spontaneous and receptive to the ritual momentum present right now, before you know it, turns into a regular spot every day at 9am for Ayurvedic breathing exercises. Staying at home alone has its own challenges. That its nothing like being on solitary, is but one. You are still living in the realm of the familiar. The habitual ways you occupy space and utilise time.

I don't know about you, but I like the idea of open unstructured days more than the actuality, where I become fidgety. Initially I'm uptight, too concerned about making the best use of my free time. Though it is meant to be just that - free time - no plan - no agenda, not my usual mix of driven task lists and deadlines. There is also the impulse to run away from too much silence, to fill the sound void with anything. Once alone I talk aloud to myself with less compunction. Though I have times when I absolutely love silence, I also can get fearful of them. What might unfurl should I fully surrender myself? So I fidget uncomfortably, reluctant to commit to any activity that comes to mind. Internally panicking at this indecisive drift and my inactivity. Time is literally slipping away. This silence will be the death of me.

And yet things do come up. Many years ago in Cambridge, I regularly went to see Richard - The Osteopath. A very fine practitioner, who was also adept at reading through your body the nature of the consciousness inhabiting it. One time, after a treatment had finished and I was putting my coat on to leave, he made an observation that was right on the button. 'I get the feeling that you are like a shop full of very beautiful objects, lovingly displayed, everything just so. But if one tiny thing disappoints, becomes lost, broken or out of place then your whole life, the shop, everything - in your mind tumbles into ruins'  The discomforting truth of this statement reappeared again this week.

I've been reflecting on gratefulness, in the wake of watching talks and reading books by Brother David Steindl-Rast, who has written rather a lot on this subject. Its made me realise quite how ungrateful I have been at times, particularly with how my life has turned out. That it wasn't how I originally imagined it would be, was a flaw in my perception, not of myself or the world. When I reflect on my life now, I have been fortunate, with much to feel grateful for. However, some grudges, resentments, disappointments still linger on well past their Use Before date. Am I going to go to my grave still holding onto these? Will I move on? By the end of my days will it be grudges or gratefulness?

Brother David refers a lot to living in the 'given' world, being present to it, aware and responsive. Seeing each day is a gift, a surprise and an opportunity. That you can only truly feel grateful for a 'gift' when you recognise and acknowledge that it is 'a gift' and you value or find meaning in the thing you've been given. My practice at the moment is with the latter - valuing what I've been given. I so easily devalue things, myself included, what I do, what has happened, what other people do for me. As a consequence I fail to express my gratitude enough. Mostly because in the moment what there is to be grateful for is being obscured by ungratefulness, dislike, even aversion. Perhaps one thing is not quite right in the carefully curated little shop of very precious objects, that is my life. Obsessing over what isn't quite right means I tend to overlook all the rest that is.

There is an American saying 'When life serves you lemons, make lemonade'. A lot that happens to us feels, and maybe is, awful at the time. Life can be difficult to handle emotionally. But often these sorts of situations have, in the past, prompted me to take active steps to move on from them. To forge a new direction from which to grow. Whatever turns up, whatever the world presents, it will be some sort of opportunity for practise. To make some progress with dealing better with myself, others, work, ethics, creatively.  Nothing changes if you can't face it, examine it, go with it, not against it. Over time I have gained some trust in life and in my resourcefulness to deal with it. Even though what happens is perhaps not what you think you want right now, in time this will be fine, this will be perfectly OK. You'll find yourself laughing about this very same thing in the future. But this doesn't mean you should ever roll over and go passive to it. Be grateful for the lemons, but start preparing to make the lemonade.

Gratitude, so Brother David insists, cannot be just words, it must be demonstrabe. Its genuineness is shown in ones responses and actions. The depth of your gratefulness depends upon the meaning 'the gift' has for you. Sometimes I operate on an 'idea' of what has meaning for me, trying it on for size like a hat. But meaning inhabits you, because it feels fulfilling and something to feel grateful for. Your sense of purpose may be connected to that meaning. But when its not, then it easily becomes a willful driven sense of purpose that could eventually burn you out.  

Likewise any 'idea' about what has meaning is never going to be enough. You have to be willing to relinquish the idea of having complete control of ones destiny.  Meaning enters whenever your guard is down. There may be an opportunity being thrown up here. Whether you pick up on what that is, will partly be dependent on how present, aware and willing you are. Noticing the difference between being willful and being willing, is something I've yet to fully recognise and learn.

Currently I'm holding in mind the word 'leisurely' another quality Brother David Steindl-Rast writes about. Practising a more 'leisurely' approach to a task, permitting myself whatever time it requires. To not let deadlines or perceived ideas of being productive or goals dominate. Leaving space around my work in which to enjoy the task as a task, not as a mission. 

Taking a more leisurely and playful attitude towards tasks requires some active awareness. For, as Brother David points of, in play we sing, we dance, we enjoy, without needing to know why we are singing, dancing or enjoying. Play doesn't need to have meaning brought to it, it is there in the very doing of it. Every task, however menial, has meaning locked away somewhere within it. Should we be in too much of a hurry to get it over with, we might just blink and miss it.

What Brother David has said about taking a more leisurely approach to work, has strongly resonated with me. I  recognise what he's talking about, in my own willfulness and experience of its consequences. But its easy to say these sort of things in the abstract, when I'm not currently in my normal work mode and lifestyle. This needs testing in the anvil of circumstance.

The first thing, however, that precipitates change is always awareness. Once you are aware of something you cannot put it back in the box and become unaware of it again. You could act upon it, or not act upon it.  You could try repression, but lets not go there shall we. What would a leisurely approach to a task actually feel like? Am I willing to find out?

MY OWN WALKING - Journal 16/01/22

There are discernible themes running through my life. One is of tidal waves of creative desires, quite often frustratedly impacting against the solidly immovable rocks of circumstances. In consequence, there has also been a feeling of self betrayal at not being able, or not feeling able, to pursue them. Experiencing profound sadness whenever I carelessly break the scab off this old sore. Now with age, the time and energy to pick things up and run with them is not always there. Ebbing further away until at some point they will be entirely beyond the reach of me. These days I'm forced to regretfully shrug my shoulders and say ' no use crying over this now.'

I've often had pause to reflect that perhaps I was bequeathed too many gifts, too many things I'm able to do, or put my hands to. My creative interests have ranged wide. That has always been half the difficulty. The other half, a certain fickleness to my self confidence. Were I to name just a few past endeavours, there has been painting, poetry, acting, singing, performance art, story writing, history, morris dancing. Literally impossible to pursue all of them, all of the time. Creative impulses spread too thinly, might as well be a ghost. Which in itself proves dissatisfying.

Then there is the restlessness that never sleeps. A lifetime of endeavouring to find outlets to be creative within, kept company with the insufficiency of sleep. Fertile soil left fallow for too long can be painful to consciously recollect. Of all the crops never sown, so never reaped. Perhaps it is in the night that I dream the dreams I either do not want, or perhaps fear, to imagine or remember. Tossing and turning over what was or could have been. I needed to earn a living, quite often in an entirely mundane way. Entailing some of my desires being martyred on the altar of necessity. This is not an experience unique to me, it is regrettably quite a common one.

I work these days on encouraging gratefulness, for what I do have, what I have done, what I am doing creatively. This helps, to a degree. Saving me from falling too deeply into the pit of melancholy for anyone to reach and pull me out. I fully appreciate the value of the creative things that I have been able to do. But part of me remains unconvinced by my own arguements.  On an emotional level I'm always hungry for more. Whatever I have done, falls short of some idealised potential.  It can be like living with this quiet but persistently unrequited love. That hangs around in the wings saying ' you go right ahead and try to make this impasse seem perfectly alright. You know that it isn't. But I'll still be here patiently waiting for you to come up and embrace me. Just let me know when you're ready'

I clocked it was never going to be feasible to keep all my creative plates spinning, quite early on. It helped to focus on one artistic endeavour at a time, if only to get the sense of having made progress. I am fortunate to be blessed with many practical skills, picked up over the years. Though I've not had either the desire or the depth of talent to develop these to the level of true craftsmanship. Its too late now anyway. The dexterity and suppleness of my arthritic hands grows stiffer and more prone to cackhandedess. Finely detailed fiddly work not far from being beyond my ability to execute. I have to cultivate contentment with what it is that I can do, however imperfect. For this will have to do. 

I'm not confident artistic creativity alone can ever be a reliable enough refuge. To invest huge amounts of faith in, spiritually speaking. It is far too needy of attention. So rife is it with discontent and the voracious craving for more. Art can be like an addictive beast, the more you feed it the bigger it grows, the more insatiable its appetite becomes. Yet it appears, I cannot let it alone, something remains needing to be given a voice. 

Art as a form of self expression, it could be said, has no practical purpose, no meaning other than in the doing of it. Zen Buddhism might say that the whole idea of artistic self expression is a form of deluded neurotic vanity. And whilst I am fully aware of its evident limitations as part of a spiritual path, I appear unwilling to kick the habit. Unless the habit kicks me first.

MY OWN WALKING - Journal 01/01/22

One morning recently I lay half dozing in a sort of waking dream. It was one of those constantly unfolding scenarios where I am lost but trying to get back on track. I was out cycling around with a good Buddhist friend of mine. We get parted along the way whilst peddling through one if those wastelands of run down trading estates, partly redundant warehouses and rubble car parks. Whilst trying to catch up with where I think my friend is, I take a short cut through a small brightly coloured clothes shop. This is very tiny and quite labyrinthine, and has multiple eccentric points of entry and exit. Which one will be the best way of getting out of here with my bicycle and catching up with my friend? 

I never locate him, but then in this type of 'search dream' you rarely do find your way. The desired destiny remains elusive, just beyond tangible reach. The emotional tone of any dream is primary here. The detail is generally misleading should you start over interpreting them. This one put me in touch with my own fears and anxieties about losing spiritual purpose and direction. These feelings have a tender, raw quality to them, surrounded by auras of doubt. It has some truth to it. Whilst I am encouraging myself to stay open and receptive, it has no intentionally predefined sense of direction. To be directionless is not necessarily to be lost? You can have purpose in the moment, without knowing where you heading towards.

Travelling without a spiritual map you do have to stop every once in a while to check out where you are, the terrain ahead, potential paths forward. Maps are nothing but abstractions, symbols and analogies for the path, nothing like the literal ground you are to traverse. But maps provide a sense of security through the confidence in knowing the general direction you're heading in.  A spiritual map defines what your purpose or mission is. Faced with the actual territory there's frequently a mismatch between your experience and what the maps tell you should be there. Its easy to then become confused, questioning and doubt filled. At some point spiritual maps become redundant.

Whether what you are doing us correct. Are going the right way? These are common experiences whether you are travelling within or outside of a spiritual tradition. Questioning and doubts are part and parcel of the currency exchanged between practice and faith. 

The Lotus Sutra recounts a parable. A group of people are being guided towards a supposedly Magic City. Though the journey is arduous and long, thoughts about reaching the Magic City keep everyone motivated.  But as they near where the Magic City should be, the guide informs them there is actually no such a place. That it was employed simply as a device to make the journey easier. Teachings in any tradition, convey particular sets of myths about the path and where ultimately a spiritual journey is destined. Our need for a clear tangible goals sustain our faith, even though ultimately such descriptions of the goal may prove to be deceptive or illusory.

However, here am I, currently talking about my spiritual journey as a supposedly 'independent path'. This is a story I am currently telling myself about why I am doing what I am doing. Though the story is bound to be shot through with self delusion, its helping me navigate my way through the unfamiliar territory I'm currently walking through. Undoubtedly I'll feel occasionally I am wasting my time, wandering about aimlessly in the barren wasteland of the worldly realm. If I am lost, what is it I have lost? Have I lost faith? If so what in?

My motivation, purpose and resolve to persist deserts me from time to time. Confidence and trust in what I'm doing will return, I know. I have to hang loose with feelings of being clueless, bewildered and directionless. Its difficult to stand back, to not strive too hard to forge a way forward. Perhaps, for a while at least, it may be better to stay put, wait patiently, be receptive, to get a better feel for what the actual ground beneath me is like. Faith returns like every good friend does, in its own good time. 

In my last journal entry I touched on a variety of things I felt were missing. Perhaps I need to add faith to that list. Faith can become invisible to you from time to time. Faith stands upon twin unstable grounds, in a goal one has no experience of as yet, in relying upon the slippery hold we have on our sense of purpose and practice.

A journey doesn't need a destination, only a purpose, an imaginary conceit. In your imagination you require your own version of the Magic City. Quite what that is for me at the moment, what I am unconsciously putting my faith in, is an interesting question. I have no clear perception or answer as yet what that is. But I can be sure I will have faith in something.

MY OWN WALKING - Journal 16/12/21

Jnanasalin gave a talk recently about Buddhism at The Octagon Unitarian Chapel in Norwich. A uniquely beautiful example of a Presbyterian non conformist building. For me the place was evocative my own Methodist upbringing as a child, of my Mother and Father.

During the talk there was chanting of the Shakyamuni mantra and Jnanasalin read the opening verses of the Verses on the Faith Mind. I felt a strong upwelling of emotion, I wanted to cry, but I was in a public situation, so checked myself. I felt overwhelmed by feelings of deep fondness. I really missed both the mantra and the verses. They are like dear familiar friends. A love affair that was not yet over, that still meant a lot to me  That sense for things 'missing' lingered. Of many things that are no longer here, such as my parents, I miss them too.

Two days later. I'm up far far too early, as is frequently my misfortune. In these hours I fill the sleeplessness by watching a TV programme or two. On this morning it was one of the Winter Walks in the Yorkshire Dales on I Player. Again I had the same welling up of emotion, again the sense of 'missing'. This time it was for needing to be alone and walking in that countryside. It reminded me of the Pennines, I yearned for the hills and valleys of the West Riding.

I followed this with an episode of The Repair Shop. Where a group of skilled crafts people restore broken family items. Again the emotional welling up. The programme can be over sentimental and manipulative, but it is about mending emotional connections, restoring or repairing what has been lost, forgotten or missing. This is not without significance to my present Zeitgeist. Whilst talking about this to Jnanasalin the emotional dam I'd built burst its restraints.

I've had a tendency in the past when I leave any situation to sever all emotional as well as physical connections. It appears to be how I've coped with disappointments or disillusionment. I move on, with the intention at least, of not going back, not returning. Whilst I've attempted to prevent the momentum of this gaining too much traction, I've found it impossible to completely resist, subvert or divert. One way or another withdrawal will make itself known. 

For the last six months I've not sat to meditate or performed any sort of ritual, Buddhist or otherwise. I have consciously done this to create an open space, from where I might gain a clearer perspective on where I am, what I want to do next, what is it that remains important to me? I seem to need from time to time to step back, to remove myself from contexts. Only when you renounce something do you find out what it means to you.

I've had mixed responses to commitments and belonging to institutions. Though often appreciated and benefited from the supportive context for practice they provide. Yet at some point I find myself rebelling against those self same commitments and institutions, I see them as constraints. Boundaries and disciplines tell you where you are and what you are trying to achieve.  But I can, over time, lose my connection with why on earth I am there, whether this is what I really desire, or just what the religious context itself implies I should want. I cease taking meaningful refuge in it, because faith has, unbeknownst to me, flown off on wings to who knows where. I need to follow wherever that faith goes.

Here I am endeavouring to 'own my own walking' Forgetting that I also need to own and respect where it is I have already walked. What there is from my past spiritual journey that I still love, find useful, and, hence, should be taking forward with me. My emotional connection to what was 'missing' was as good as an alarm bell, or someone waving a red flag in my face. 

There is undoubtedly sentimental attachment present too. Missing the comfort of the familiar.  This does not necessarily mean returning to any religious context I've once been part of. But it does require me to pick up and reexamine a few things that may have fallen out of the trolley on my way to the supermarket check out.

MY OWN WALKING - Journal 26/11/2021

When I imagine my future spiritual direction, it begins by being open and receptive. Yet as soon as I take a step towards anything there is an urge to start asking 'does this feel right, does thus feel like a place where you could live, does this feel like home'. I appear always to be within the planetary orbit of this settling instinct. Encouraging me to grasp for coherence, for a known spiritual tradition, a safe context within which to understand how I am practising. A place where I can live, feel supported, sheltered and belong, because it can get lonely out here.

This is a theme likely to crop up repeatedly. What I'm attempting to do - to own my own walking - can slip from an easy solitary travelling, into being a long, hard and lonely road. In truth, it can be both things simultaneously. I have to be prepared to hold these two perceptions, ways of seeing the ground beneath my feet. Walking this independent form of spiritual path inevitably requires knowing its a tightrope and walking with care along the tension. Recognise when its showing its face once again, and not be too dismayed or dismissive about that.

Standing on' my own ground' presents me with the infinite possibilities of an open road, but at the same time there is the desire for someone to hold my hand. To help guide me along an unfamiliar path, to share their companionship, their experience and their wisdom. Such spiritual friendship requires shared values and practices to make a mutual bond useful. At this point, for myself, this would be seeking out security in a place of insecurity.  There can be a wisdom in this insecurity, and that interests me even as I find myself pulling away from it.

Whilst I remain in the mood for exploring, to investigate what it is I'm naturally drawn towards, to go deeper into interests and new found enthusiasms, finding like minds is unlikely and potentially misleading. If I need to settle into anything it is the creativity required in this approach, how to respond and engage usefully with whatever I encounter. Observing where this type of focus naturally leads, without erecting any predefined or emerging contextual boundary around it. 

This desire to find ones spiritual home can be a real need. But it also can come from a neurotic impulse. Trying to escape feelings, aspects of oneself, of reality as it actually is, that you are uncomfortable with, don't like or want to experience. Home can be a place to hide yourself from yourself.  To take shelter away from any discomfort. To keep what is outside your experience outside. A home supports, but also contains and imprisons. Creating a way to filter what does and doesn't enter your experience. Should I conceptualise even my current spiritually independent path into another form of home, this could prove equally unhelpful. 

I suspect one never finds ones true spiritual home, without letting go of ones ideas and concepts of what it is that home looks and feels like. What one needs your home to be for you. Home has a shifting perspective, that never has a permanent location or orientation. At some point we step out of the safety and isolation of home, in order to encounter anything or anyone new. To be renewed and reinvigorated is to be prepared to meet the unknown, whilst wandering in a wilderness of potential.

'Come, As a man who hears a sound at the gate
Opens the window and puts out the light
The better to see out into the dark,
look, I put it out.' *

* from Finally by W S Merwin