Back to the Weir

This post, subtitled "Get Ready (minus the For What) was sparked by one of life's odd series of coincidences. First up was my Leo May horoscope from PlanetWaves: "You are at what could rightly be one of the most fulfilling times in your life, in whatever you consider your core mission to be. Yet it seems as if there's a shadow you keep encountering. Sometimes it feels like a question. Other times it feels like your most cherished goal keeps slipping out of reach." Of course, the horoscope did not explain how to fix such an untenable position between what I am so close to having and what I just can't reach.  I do believe this is where our Weir discussion began last December.

 I sniffed around feeling badly about this obviously unfair monkeying about in my business until the second part of the story dropped into my mailbox. 

“Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance and none can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun. Care for those around you. Look past your differences. Their dreams are no less than yours, their choices no more easily made. And give, give in any way you can, of whatever you posses. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither. Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.” Kent Nerburn

It was the "care less for your harvest than how it is shared" that caught my attention.  I took another look at that horoscope, placing it carefully in the "to be thought about further" slot in my brain, and left it there without the judgement label attached.  During my lunch break, I decided to explore Kent Nerburn's work a little more.  Wow.   At his website, I was able to read excerpts from his book "The Wolf at Twilight".  I had to stop reading for a moment, sending a silent blessing to the first two pebbles that had sent the ripples in my pond out to this writer.  On page 299, his Native American Elder character Dan states, "We were an honoring people, a guardian people, not an exploring and discovering people.  For us the world was a mystery to be honored, not a puzzle to be solved."

Funny, in a terribly frustrating sort of way, how easy it is to forget what I already know.  I hate having to learn a lesson over and over again, but here I was, needing a reminder.  A weir slows things down, sometimes even encouraging a thing, or an idea, or even a relationship to eddy back to us.  The Weir chapter of Lloyd Alexander's  The Prydain Chronicles illustrates this so perfectly. His character Llonio doesn't value items that he finds because he knows why he will need them.  He values the large, flat, round rock that Taran trips over for the uniqueness of its shape, the smoothness of its surface, the very fact that it appears where he can't miss it.  
  

When I pulled my horoscope back out of temporary storage and looked at it through Llonio's eyes, the part that leapt out at me was not "slipping out of reach", but rather "whatever I consider my core mission to be". For much of my life, I have been an exploring and discovering person. The kind that assesses a goal, noting the necessary steps to achievement and proceeding forward until that goal is indeed discovered, marked on the map, and becomes the point from which the journey to a new goal is plotted. Kent Nerburn's Dan describes it this way:

 "You were always seeking. You did not want to stay still - in your lives or in your minds. You were always trying to change things, to make them better, to make them different. It was like the world that the Creator had made was not good enough for you. You wanted to know what was inside of stones and what was beyond the stars. You took everything apart then tried to put it back together. You never rested."

I know that doesn't sound so terrible - in fact, it sounds like just the type of person we Americans value.   There's always something more to be learned, something more to be gained, something more to be experienced....... something more that seems just out of reach.  This restless spirit propels us forward into the unknown which is incredible, and just a little dangerous.  Let's circle back to the subtitle of today's post (Get Ready - Minus the For What) to see why.


If I wait to see the shape, feel the texture, and take measure of a thing, an idea, or an experience until a need is upon me, I am only seeing through the perspective of that need   When such a need arises, I go looking for a tool that is x big, y heavy and z porous.  My brain has a mission.  I rush past hundreds of other rocks that do not meet the necessary specifications.  And therein lies the weakness and danger of the restless spirit:  when my brain is programmed to seek only one specific goal at a time, I create a pattern of need-based, short-term achievement.


Llonio however, is an honoring kind of guy.  He moves through his day with a wide-angled vision that Jon Young of the Wilderness Awareness School calls "owl eyes".  Because he has filled his mind with an awareness of all the rocks in his environment, their shape and size and texture, his inventory is incredibly abundant.  When the need for a specific rock arises, he is able to respond with little wasted energy.  Rather than chasing and retrieving, Llonio has gathered his abundance with with an appreciative, observant awareness of his place and of himself.  He truly is Ready.