Uncharted Lands and New Beginnings

I have a long history of failure with maps. An orienteering course while I was in college comes to mind. I successfully convinced four experienced members of my team that I knew where I was when I didn't.  They had to send a truck for us.  I don't know why they listened to me anyway because I almost never knew where I was going and got lost more often than I didn't.  Another time I was leading a paddling trip on The Chattooga River,  I came out of the woods with my canoe on my shoulder a very long way from where I should have been.  These stories, and there are more, don’t surprise anyone who knows me.  It’s not unusual for the person I’m meeting somewhere to call and without a hello, or howdy do ask, “How lost are you?”

 Recently, I found myself in uncharted territory, a new and completely unexpected beginning, and I wanted a map. I wanted someone to say, “Over here, not there, go right, not left.”  I wanted a label for my unknown destination in an unfamiliar land. And that is where the problem lay, wanting to call something done when it has yet to begin stops the unfolding of a thing in its track.  It kills the magic inherent in the creation of all new things.

You can’t use an old map in an uncharted land. It does you absolutely no good.  What was a lake on your old map could be a mere pond in the land which is new. What you call a destination, could be a gateway leading to you somewhere more glorious than you imagined…but only if you keep going.  So, take care when you enter an uncharted land. Don’t be so quick to think you know when you clearly don’t. Stop trying to make it what it’s not or what you think it should be and let it be what it could be if you left it alone. Breathe into the fullness of your being and trust in the unfolding of what will be.  It’s either fear or love, baby. What’s in your heart?