Faithwalk

One early May morning while on solitary retreat this year, I woke up with the word “Faithwalk”. It was loud, clear and provocative: “FAITHWALK”! I laid in bed for a bit to take it in: it was clearly a command and both a noun and a verb.

“Faith” is a word often used in reference to a religious path but I don’t experience it that way. I do have faith. My faith is drawn from the deep natural rhythms of life: spring follows winter, fall follows summer. Growing up with acres of fields and woods to roam about, I was held in the daily and seasonal rounds. I trusted those rhythms of both life and death and I still do. The inhale and exhale of the natural world hums inside my bones and some day, those bones will return to the earth as part of the great round. I am a contemplative who feels naturally held by whatever you call the larger forces in the universe and to everything there is a season.

We are entranced with the belief that life moves in a straight line. Life does not move in a straight line, it moves in fits and bursts, then still points, and surprise, it arises again in unexpected ways. Life moves like a toddler wearing new clothes jumping in mud puddles. Unnecessary suffering happens anytime we impose linear thinking on life and that suffering is at the root of much of the anxiety that’s prevalent now. Yes, life contains suffering and we can learn to cause ourselves less of it by not pushing.

The experience I had that morning in May upon awakening called me to an edgy place of commitment within myself.

“For far too long we have been seduced into walking a path that did not lead us to ourselves. For far too long we have said yes when we wanted to say no. And for far too long we have said no when we desperately wanted to say yes. . . . When we don’t listen to our intuition, we abandon our souls. And we abandon our souls because we are afraid if we don’t, others will abandon us.”
~Terry Tempest Williams

“Faithwalk” carries for me, the potent message to trust the dark, defy consensual reality, hold the larger picture, stay steady in these polarized times, trust there is a way forward, trust intuition and trust that we can transform our wounds into wisdom, especially the wounds of where we have abandoned ourselves.