The Long Haul

Night before leaving Australia. Fragile. Open. Scared. Completely vulnerable. Not that I could feel that as inside I felt all triangles and squares. I felt spiky.

I called dad and said that I wanted to say goodbye and he said "How are you?"

"I’m scared Dad."

"Of course you are," he said, and the warmth love compassion care tenderness respect and pride in his voice melted my spiky thorny insides and brought me back to myself.

How do I feel?

Scared.

"So what do you know?" he asked me as I walked the Melbourne suburban street in my pyjamas and uggboots in July and cried into him.

What do I know? What do I know now? 'Thank you for that question...' echoed around my cavernous insides as the wisdom within was invited to speak…

"I know that I’m scared. I’m scared of the dark places waiting for me.

"I know that the dark places will be forward as they are backward and I know they will be wherever I am.

"I know that I’m afraid of feeling all alone in the world. As if no-one cares. I know that in one sense I will always be alone.

"I know that at times I will love my aloneness and cherish it and within it feel All One and connected to and supported by the world and everyone in it.

"I know that if I remember to, I will meet angels along every step of my journey.

"I know that on my travels I will reconnect with friends who will remind me of selves within myself that are a bit faded and rusty and that will absolutely DELIGHT me to BE once again.

"I know that I am so excited about the places that I am stepping into. Inner places and outer places.

"I know that there are ways of SEEING that I am blind to now, and I know there are ways of LISTENING that I’m not able yet to hear. I know there are ways of THINKING and ways of LOVING and ways of CREATING and BEING that I have no concept of yet. And I can’t wait to meet them. I KNOW they are all there… in this beautiful blessed future tumbling towards me that I am also falling into.

"I know I will meet people who will show me ways of loving and being loved and feeling connected and alive and together beyond anything I’ve yet experienced in this world…. But I will KNOW it because LEARNING TRUTH always feels like REMEMBERING something you’ve always known but just forgot.

"I know I will learn things that will open my mind and open my world. I know that a whole universe of new worlds awaits me… and I’m the explorer of my own unknown galaxy… and that excites me on a level that renders the word ‘excited’ as completely inept."

And I felt soft, open, gentle and whole in the complete safe-ness of that state.

Of walking into my future… ears, eyes, head, heart open.

"That is beautiful. That is poetry. Write it. On the plane tomorrow you need to write that Jayne. Write it. And take it with you and put it on your wall with that other poem of ‘Home’ that you read to me the other night. They will remind you and bring you home. Remind you that you ARE home, wherever you ARE."

Walking into my future… ears, eyes, head, heart open.

Listening for the shimmers of sounds that my ears are just learning to attune to…

Sensing the subtle differences of colours I’ve never before seen…

Watching for the beautiful leaps of head and heart going to new places that feels like a deep and delicious remembering…

Walking into my future… ears, eyes, head, heart open.