July 20

PATIENCE MONTH: DAY 20: “The best teachers have showed me that things have to be done bit by bit. Nothing that means anything happens quickly–we only think it does. The motion of drawing back a bow and sending an arrow straight into a target takes only a split second, but it is a skill many years in the making. So it is with a life, anyone’s life. I may list things that might be described as my accomplishments in these few pages, but they are only shadows of the larger truth, fragments separated from the whole cycle of becoming. And if I can tell an old-time story now about a man who is walking about, waudjoset ndatlokugan, a forest lodge man, alesakamigwi udlagwedewugan, it is because I spent many years walking about myself, listening to voices that came not just from the people but from animals and trees and stones.” ― Joseph Bruchac

This quote brings me back to myself, because I learn a great deal from animals and trees and stones. I have always been inclined to spend more time with them than with people. My Medicine teacher gave me such great insight into this aspect of myself. Because I am (told so) Irish and Irish, I never believed I had Indigenous blood in my veins. This was clarified and I got it why I get from Nature the sense of the Universe and a spiritual path. It has always been so for me and I am grateful for the teachings he brought into my experience. It balanced my soul and my life more fully to accept my path as one that curves when others’ seem to go in a straight line and why mine zigs when yours might zag. I am okay with that, and finally at peace with my heart and my soul and my journey. My brain may never be at peace, but every day I get to rely on it less and less to fuel my life. This is great news! I could not imagine what patiently practicing spiritual principles could ever bring to me…I was SO impatient and needed not only solutions to my problems, but answers…and NOW dammit! So today I can sit with the trees and the wind and the sun and the moon and the animals and be completely at peace that the Universe is unfolding exactly as it should, with no help from me, either. Hahaha! I just spoke with someone and shared that I watched an old Cary Grant movie last night (I LOVE Cary!) and decided this morning that the solution to my single state lies in the reincarnation of Cary Grant…I am SURE he is the one for me! Hahaha! My only task today is to do less and BE more. Let myself experience life rather than trying to figure it all out. Any newcomer may believe that I know stuff because I have gained some time around this deal. All that means is that I have done this one day at a time, one meeting at a time, one sponsor phone call at a time, one step at a time…and so on. I have lived without getting loaded through each day, some of which were terrifying and some where I felt desperately lonely and unloved, some of which were sunny and bright. Some of the time, I felt like a butterfly, busy and flitting around, mindless and involved in a zillion things, none of which had any depth to them. Then I began to sit still with deep feelings and learned that they would not kill me. That the resistance that I have always had to FEELINGS is the source of most of my pain. Not being able to accept what life is putting on my plate left me hungry for what I could not have! This was so important for me today that I had to highlight it. In case you are wondering, this is often the forum where I work out things that I know I know and that I cannot gain access to at the moment I need it.