That’s the million dollar question, now isn’t it… I know it was mine. And I’m sorry to break it to you, but the only real answer I’ve found to that question is this: The Journey is not meant to be safe. Breakthrough implies breaking. Rising implies loss of ground.
You feel it in those defining moments that make you bow your head and mutter, “I don’t know what I’m doing…” and Spirit tenderly responds, “That’s okay.” And you manage to make the journey anyway.
The Call to Adventure from Spirit may not always feel like Grace. Often you are asked to move toward the stirrings of Spirit when every other part of you shouts Run away! Run Away! Because as numinous, blissful and rewarding as spiritual growth can be… our getting there can often be messy.
I don’t think enough voices out there in the spiritual field honor that messiness. And so seekers can find it difficult to feel permission, respect and acceptance of the times when awakening is hard. When choosing heart over head is frightening. When the stirrings of Soul just don’t make sense…
So here’s a medicine story.
Because when things don’t make sense, stories often reveal the truth better than facts can…
Sinking Ships In an Unknowable Sea
Out there in the endless, wild expanse… and also swirling in the unknowable depths within… is a vast and glorious ocean of Spirit.
Can you sense it?
They say that every wave and every drop of the sea is made of the sea. That the drop is never not ocean. How cool is that?
But let’s imagine that one day a magnificent wave rises so powerfully, and so high, that it momentarily forgets that it is ocean. Let’s imagine that this wave decides that it’s a ship. A ship out at sea…
How glorious this is! Being a ship is fantastic. Oh, but wait… now this lone ship must stay afloat. It must remain intact. For if it were to break apart and fall to the watery hands of the sea, it would be no more. For how can a ship be the sea?
At first, this wave that believes itself to be a ship is feeling pretty dandy. I mean, hey! There’s a bright sun gently warming the decks and somehow the salt on the air tastes different than it had before.
A Tempestuous Tango So Tempting…
A breathy whistle is sounding somewhere and the wind is changing. An electricity crackles in the air. Gusts and gales replace the soft kisses of sun and salt. A storm comes! Wow!
The ship that used to be a wave remembers how delicious storms are. For when you are ocean, you can do naught else but dance with the storm. And have you ever met a tempest?! That dance lasts all night and it’s a tango that leaves you tangled and titillated and oh-so-satisfied.
But as the sultry storm begins to slap and kick at the ship, it becomes quite clear that this will not be a dance that titillates. The dance of the storm is destructive to those that are ships.
Whipped up into a frenzy by all the commotion around it, the ship decides it needs a captain. It needs a way through this mess because going with the flow doesn’t seem to work anymore. As the captain emerges to take helm for the ship, there is an odd experience of being tugged and torn between these two forces: Between the chaotic pull and punch of the storm from without, and the steady presence and direction of the captain within… who now sets a course to cut their way out of the storm.
A battle of wills seems to ensue, but soon the ship and its captain are safe. Victory!
Seeking Calm Waters {Not At All Calmly}…
Things called days and soon big things like years and decades begin to pass. The ship and its captain learn to seek calm waters and to avoid approaching storms. Lessons are learned as leaks and breaks occur that must be fixed. For a time, it is as if the storms chase and hunt them, and the ship and its captain become afraid.
This is very serious business, being afraid! Waters must be charted. Plans must be made. They can’t waste time lingering in the sun and salt. No, no, they must focus on the task at hand! They must focus on staying SAFE!
The brave captain efforts tirelessly to navigate all there is of the ocean, and one day, lo and behold, he finds it: The one cove where it is always safe.
“We will remain here. You will want for nothing,” the captain declares.
And for a time, the ship is relieved. No more leaks or breaks. No more tireless work, or stress, or fear. No more anything, actually. There is no more dancing. The sun and salt spray glimmer out towards the horizon, but little of it reaches the ship here.
And eventually, as more big things called years pass, the ship that was once a wave begins to miss the titillating tango of the storm.
“But we must remain here,” the captain urges.
Desire says otherwise. The answer rumbles from the very fibers of the ship’s decks.
“But we must stay. It is not safe elsewhere”
Safe. The word erases the barely-there memories of a storm that did not destroy. A storm that danced… had it ever even been? Perhaps not. Storm punch and kick. They know this. And so the ship agrees. Safe. And soon the captain takes his leave to go rest.
Ever the Siren’s Call…
Something whispers on the breeze just beyond the cove’s entrance. It stirs the sails of the ship. It knocks softly on the hard wood of the decks.
Call for me, my dear one. Your captain fears me, but I can save you. We were once lovers, you and I. We once danced as Storm and Sea.
The ship tries not to hear the dangerous temptings of the storms beyond, but they tug at something deep within its bowels, down where the sea hugs its bow. Something just beneath memory?
The siren call continues, and the ship cannot but hang on every word:
Let my harsh caress penetrate your shackles, and let my love dash you among those rocks. With me you can be free. With me you can remember your True Self. Call to me and I will come. I can reach you there if you open yourself to me.
It is a call to death! How could what feels so right, so deeply true, be so cruel? The ship is shaken, and its shudderings wake the captain.
But the siren’s call continues, serenading the ship each night as its captain sleeps.
[questions, curiosity starts to arise. what’s out there? the unknowable sea… what’s in here? a known cove with nothing to do… slowly remembering]
With the siren call came those familiar shudders of anxiety and fear. With the storm came a terrifying darkness. The storm obliterated the light, and it would obliterate the ship.
Captain, it is time. Let us strike out to meet this Tempest.
“But we’ll be destroyed! She’ll sink the ship!”
That’s okay. There is something you must see.
“But what?!” asks the captain, perplexed.
What happens when you sink a ship that knows it is the sea.