I continue to be soulful in my consideration of my uncontrollable desire to get on the Greyhound bus and ride across the northern US in the middle of January.
I've share my spiritual journey with a friend for decades, and we've been through the ups and downs of the mystery together. Today I was having the "how do you know?" conversation that I wrote about in yesterday's post. "I want to follow my guidance, but how do I know that it is real?" I repeated.
In yesterday's post I mentioned that sometimes guidance comes out of my own mouth in conversation with someone else. As I shared my dilemma, my friend respectfully held space until the words came out of my mouth, "You know, my busy little brain makes things up to keep me from doing things I am afraid of." It occurred to me as I talked that I have embarked on this monumental cleaning out project of getting rid of things that I don't want to be part of my next nine years.
As I look at boxes, piles, and bookshelves brimming over, I am certain that I could really benefit from cleaning out. There are some things that clearly are part of my future and other things that definitely are not. But, what about the sea of things in the middle? If I don't know what my future is--what I want, how can I know what to do with this vast expanse in the middle?
Now, talk about doing something that scares me: that is it. Why am I scared? I don't think that I would be throwing out anything that couldn't be replaced. Then, what is it? I am certain that the answer lies in committing to my future. What will it be? Some people at my age are winding down and would say, "Why bother?" But I have exceptionally good longevity genes. I will most likely live another lifetime for most people. It does matter. I want this bonus life to matter.
If you'll excuse the word, this is "huge."
As I pondered my trip, it occurred to me that this whole Greyhound trip thing may be the invention of my tricky little mind to help me avoid making a commitment about my bonus life. Oh, my, I thought. That rang truer than I could have imagined.
This evening I've psychically been weighing, sometimes even holding out my two hands, palms upward, as if the mass of thoughts could be measured. Divine guidance? Trick of my mind? Divine guidance? Trick of my mind? Oh, dear.
My big cleaning out project for today has been getting the Amazon/kindle version of The Game Called Life, a considerable stack of paper, off my desk. As I started the finishing up project, I discovered that I had gotten it 95% done in November of 2014. It took me less than 20 minutes to correct the handful of typos. I've been waiting 26 months because I was too busy to make 20 minutes-worth of corrections!
The down side of the 26-month delay is that I had marked my proof copy very deliberately for something other than typos, and it had been so long, I couldn't remember what the markings meant. I am sure that it never occurred to me when I edited it that I wouldn't pick it up again until 2017. The more of the markings that I found, the more concerned I became about putting the book "out there" without giving attention to whatever these markings were.
I read through whole pages with the markings. I could find nothing wrong. What was it that I was missing? Finally, I relented. I would sit and read the book, again, for maybe the 20th time. Maybe then it would be clear to me. This book is life-changing, at least for me. About 30 pages in, I figured the mystery markings out: they were talking points for lectures and interviews, which inevitably follow a book release.
Mystery solved. I could have stopped, but each time I've read the book, I've learned things that I had long-since forgotten. So, I kept reading.
About two-thirds of the way through the book, I stumbled onto a process for getting clarity. I tried it. In an instant, even before I could articulate the full question, the answer was there. This time, I was told, it didn't matter what I did as much as why I did it. Consequently, I will muster up my courage, stay home and sort, and in that vast middle, I hope to find my future.
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