The Journey

The Journey

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice--

though the whole house began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundation,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do--

determined to save

the only life you could save.

--Mary Oliver

I'm tired.

I'm really very tired.

An epic kind of tired. 

And it feels wonderful. 

Because I can feel it. 

I can feel the fatigue, honor it and leave plenty of room for it when it shows up and not try to cross over the solid yellow line and pass it by.  I lived speeding past fatigue for years.  I would get stuck behind it in that one lane and I would put on my blinker and pass it by...much to the chagrin of my world weary bones.  (I have rueful - sardonic bones.)

I am in a new phase of my life.  Turning 50 notwithstanding, though I do think it inspires in its own quiet way, this new phase is heralded by an awareness that it is time to be guided by a new partner in my life.  Oh no, not that...my husband Drew and I are great.  We have weathered the storms - hurricanes - tsunamis (you get the idea) of the last four years and are thriving (our story is a post for another day).  No, this new partner in my life is feeling. 

Not some feelings, not a partial serving - full contact feeling.


Here's the deal. The paradox.  Because, if I've learned nothing else, I've learned that everything, and I think I mean pretty much damn near everything, is paradoxical. Now stay with me here, I can feel that this is important.  What I am about to say isn't new, you've heard it before. This time,  I don't want you to just hear it - just see it. I want you to feel it.

We already have in abundance the very thing we think we lack.  We're the only ones who don't know it.

I know - you already went to the I think I lack a million dollars and I don't have it.  Well, who's to say you don't - yet.  Let's move out of the material realm for a moment and begin with perhaps a more challenging feat - a feeling.

So, the thing I 'think' I lack is the ability to really feel my way through my life or as Mary Oliver so beautifully wrote - the journey. I rely so much on my seeing sense/my clear rational mind sense/ the symbolic imagery-psychological sense stuff that I have miss vital cues from my feelings.  And I want more.

What is paradoxical are all the clues I've learned about myself over the years.  Just like a character in a play, we learn a great deal about our character from others.  I am a feeling not a thinking type on the Meyers-Briggs.  I am a Quick-Start type on the Kolbe Index. I am the Innovator Lifestyle on the CPI (California Personality Inventory).  I haven't done the Strength Finders yet but I've a strong hunch that FEELING is high on the list.  When I am with friends, clients and new acquaintances, I hear a lot of messages about my warmth and how people feel around me.  Well, I want to feel this way around me too.

So, my theme this year:  2012 is the year to feel my destiny.

One year. 

One sensuous year.

If I find that I don't like all this feeling, I can pick something else for next year. 

I have a hunch I'm going to like it very much.  (Once I get through the fatigue stage.  I have a hunch that feeling/fatigue are friends and just like that two-lane highway, there is a precarious balance between the two.)

So, here's what I'm doing.  Several years ago, I was overrun with bags of every shape and size at home.  The cupboard was popping, I didn't like the waste and I thought I'm going to make a change.  I decided that I would commit to no bags for one year. And I mean NO bags.  No bag takeout food was a bitch. Well, after the year was up, it was no sweat to keep going.  And when the new bag laws went into effect in January here in San Jose, I felt a part of that change.  The 'one person can really make a difference'

kind of experience.  Because, generally there are thousands of ones all at the same time.  That is pretty power-full-stuff. 

Can you feel it? 

So, feeling is my bag intention this year.  And I have so many cool experiences already to share from January.  Stay tuned for my post on The Wonder Wheel which will set up the 'feeling my destiny' year. I am excited to share with all of you.

Do you have an intention for this new year?  One clear focus?  If you don't, go out into the wild night and listen for directions and then tell me  - what's in the bag?