July 16

PATIENCE MONTH: DAY 16: “What you encounter, recognize or discover depends to a large degree on the quality of your approach. Many of the ancient cultures practiced careful rituals of approach. An encounter of depth and spirit was preceded by careful preparation. When we approach with reverence, great things decide to approach us. Our real life comes to the surface and its light awakens the concealed beauty in things. When we walk on the earth with reverence, beauty will decide to trust us. The rushed heart and arrogant mind lack the gentleness and patience to enter that embrace.” ― John O’Donohue

This quote is so beautiful, it makes me want to go sit in the forest and wait for the creatures to appear. I did this once, on a Medicine Quest when I was about 22. Oddly, that memory was not something I held onto for very long. Not sure why, but it was a time of deep trouble for me.

I did not know it then; in fact, I only know it after the events of the last 9 or 10 months, but I was so deeply wounded at that time by things that had happened in my life. Serious trauma, but I was completely shut down and in the darkest days of my addiction, trying to pull myself out of the scary places I had gone.

And I spent two weeks hiking through the Uinta Mountains with a Medicine Man. He came to me and we met by “accident” at my friends’ home when I was visiting her in Utah. He drove right up and walked in the door of her home and told me he had come to take me on a Medicine Journey. Okay…those things happened to me a lot when I was young, and I always said “yes” without really knowing why. I believe his visit to me and the subsequent hiking in the mountains and forests of Wyoming were a time of saving that I desperately needed.

I remember so much about that NOW, after the recent time of healing that time of trauma more deeply than I ever thought possible. So amazing! I can remember that summer and the events were so powerful! I met another man and spent a month or so in a spiritual commune in Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho…cold even in the summer. Could have stayed with him, but I don’t like cold and have been “allergic” to snow all my life. But the woods in both places healed my broken spirit.

I was taught by both men how to walk in Nature. We foraged for food and lived from one day to the next, totally trusting that Nature would provide berries and nuts and water. It was beautiful. Funny how that summer was wiped away for so long. Today I can sit with that memory, because I have been taught to wait patiently for the things of beauty that are hidden under my stories and the beliefs I cling to.

Oddly, I also was given, by my mother, a picture that was taken that summer about a week ago. I did not remember the picture at all! It is hanging in my home now, so I can thank that young girl for her courage and those things that she said “YES!” to. They are lovely memories now, because I can see the amazing gifts of that time. All of them!

So, this beautiful quote has several layers of meaning for me. I have been given great gifts, because I have been forced into situations where I get to dig up what is there for me to see. I have practiced saying “YES!” and being patient enough to understand what was to know would take many years to unfold. I was not sure it would be quite so many, but time is not a construct of the Universe; it is a construct of man.

Beauty and peace and patience and love are constructs of the Universe. We sometimes have to go pretty deeply into and through a lot of BS to get there ourselves…patience is an essential ingredient to this process, for me.