Navigating Mystery

 I'm back to a topic that I did a whole series of (prose) posts on a while back, this time with a single poem. It is an inquiry I am in a lot - how to reframe living with uncertainty to navigating mystery, the words and concept coming from Martin Shaw.  

Now, I wrote this poem, some weeks ago, before I fell and broke some bones, and, oh, the irony!  The day I fell I was evidently not looking at my feet, just as I advise myself in the poem, and look what happened!

Hmm... Maybe some middle way is called for.  I remember Angeles Arrien saying so many times, "Walk the mystical path with practical feet."   My feet and I need to get a grip!  But I still think the poem has something to say, to me, at least.  

I am now spending much of my time healing, but also considering what healing really is about.

So, here's the poem.  And the Mystery of the sunset sky.

“Navigate Mystery,”

the storyteller says.

Look at it this way -

You can cower in fear

with all of life’s uncertainties,

or you can open to

the adventure.

Every story has suffering.

Every wanderer loses the way.

You live in the center

of your own imagination,

privilege your own story,

accentuate your own

pains and sorrows.

Traveling the trails

of the unknown

you have this choice:

either focus on your feet,

afraid of stumbling and falling,

or look up to the trees, the sky,

the birds winging their way

to a place of belonging.

Pain does not define you,

but if all you see is suffering,

all you will do is suffer.

Instead, watch the story unfold,

step by step, mile by mile

into whatever future

awaits.