A part of me always wants to turn back to the most original parts of myself, the parts that existed before I acquired too much information, ideas, ideals, before too many triumphs and hurts. It is the part I’ve felt time and again to be like a primal forest or undiscovered meadow, like looking over a cliff’s edge into depths wrapped in weathered stone. That part of me, natural, original, is always here, an inner wilderness I cherish.
It wouldn’t be right to say there are no paths here. If I follow a river, say an emotion such as anger or pity, relief or delight, it takes me some place. It is fair to say I may have been down the same paths along the same rivers many, many times. And where do these paths take me? Most often, it’s true, to a familiar encampment, a place where the river is more known and serene, quieter, not so unruly, reflecting a cycle of days and months and years — a place that without knowing it I have adopted as my home, a spot I’ve learned to come back to for no special reason.
Occasionally, in my travels I stop, sensing something something unexpected, turn a corner to find a hidden canyon like a secret I’d known all along, an insight. Then for days I’ll explore this shift in territories until it, too, is familiar ground.
The interior wilderness is always waiting for me, a place of exquisite freedom, and beyond all pretense. It is not about some special accomplishment or recognition. I eat when I am hungry, sleep when I am tired. There is everything and nothing to discover. I don’t need to merge with it so much as simply walk the garden. It doesn’t need me to perform, to be other than I am. It doesn’t need my grandest affirmation or personal suffering. It doesn’t have signs saying paradise one way, disaster the other — those are someone else’s roads, not mine. If I must cross them, I find I quickly turn back into the woods to again be welcomed by the light that streams down through the branches from a private, ancient sun.
There is no way to master it. Those thinking they do court an illusion. You can try to clear it but it will return. You can try to plow it under but you can’t get every seed and soon enough that beautiful kingdom of weeds will take over once again. I know its care for me is profound, even as I pull up my collar against the chill air of the changing season and the coming rain.
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For some reason, dandelions came to mind Dan! Is it a weed or a flower!? : )
I don’t have much to add except to say thank you for sharing. Your words below stood out the most for me in this one.
‘There is everything and nothing to discover. I don’t need to merge with it so much as simply walk the garden. It doesn’t need me to perform, to be other than I am.’
Full circle. It all reminds me of going full circle. At first, I don’t know it inside of myself. So I look outside for it. Someone else points or shows the way. Eventually, I’m brought back to myself again.
What seemed so complex and out of reach becomes something very simple with a realization it was ‘here’ all along. And yet, it takes going full circle to understand what is already ‘here’. Before we can come to know it.
The nature of the paradox.
Thanks for sharing Dan.
Dear Samantha~
Thank you for taking a moment to share your thoughts — particularly that notion of full circle. It’s a rather wonderful, ironic and even mystical quality of our experience.
I’m glad this little piece found you!
All the best
Dan
I mean it in the most general and loose sense though. Some things in life work that way. With other things, we can be gifted with insight without having to travel that far! : )
And others only serve to confirm it for us.
Thanks again Dan! (HUGS)
STUNNING POST.
We are so much more than what we think we are! And the more that we give of ourselves, the more seeds that we plant, the more that we ourselves grow!
And though others are benefited, it is us who is the growing seed, it is your own self that is the flowering weed under the shining sun.
Dear Dan,
It’s fantastic how clear to you is your deeper self. For me it is still a fuzzy picture.
I probably need to be fully on my own for some time to learn to find my internal compass as I am still drifting by the external forces & life circumstances.
I always feel that there’s something missing, and it looks like I’m on an eternal quest for the unknown.
Thank you for sharing your deepest thought!
Hoda
Dear Lolly~
“…it is your own self that is the flowering weed under the shining sun.”
Perfect.
Thank you, Lolly!
Best
Dan
Dear Hoda~
We all follow a mystery. Who knows where and when we will meet our true selves! Thank you so much for stopping by to share part of your own most vital journey.
All the best
Dan
I love the Zen-like wisdom encompassed by “There is everything and nothing to discover” (as Samantha already noted).
The notion of “a spot I’ve learned to come back to for no special reason” also resonates … and reminds me of another inspiring post I read earlier, You’re Stronger than You Think — Understanding the Body of Fear, which speaks of finding and dwelling in one’s “still spot”.
Here’s to interior wildernesses and exquisite freedom(s)!
Dear Joe~
I’m glad to see you back here again! I, too, like the notion of the ‘still spot’ — the “sandbar out in the ocean of fear that Jessica Durivage speaks of in the article you linked. To me, that spot can also be a point of surrender when I’m done tumbling among the rapids in some of those rivers I mentioned. (I should have said somewhere that we learn most about our inner worlds via metaphor!)
Thank you again for stopping by, Joe!
All the best
~Dan