The Journey

In March 2006, my journal entry began with "What makes you feel alive?". How many of us are fortunate to know, to really truly know, what makes us feel alive.

My journey since then has been filled with sorrow, joy, hope, fear, love, friendship, dreams. It has been filled with new paths, and more than anything, a realization of what truly makes me feel alive. I have received more gifts from connections I've made with people and animals along my path. What I have come to relish about this journey I am on, is that I don't know where it will lead me and what doors will open up. I've come to cherish the mystery of life, and when the fear of the unknown rears its ugly head, I nudge myself to simply bask in the uncertainty of the unknown.

I have been drawn to poetry lately - the compactness and metaphorical nature of poetry speaking to me in a profound way. This morning I share with you William Stafford's poem "The Journey" - may it speak to you in a way that inspires you to open more doors.

Through many doors it's been - through
that first into light, afraid, crying
for fear, for air, no going back.
Then other doors: the one where shadows
waited like night, the one nobody
opened when I knocked, and the one where somebody
did. (It was over a cliff and I fell.)

One time there wasn't any door; I turned to look
where I had been - only that? Only
those meaningless windows leading down one
by one to the faint small beginning?
Past the middle of life, and nothing
done - but a voice came on: "I am
the door," someone said. I closed my eyes;
whatever I touched led on.

I ask myself this morning, "what doors in my life need opening?"

We simply need to close our eyes and touch the door.