STEPPING STONES

REFLECTIONS FROM WITHIN

7.6.12

How do we navigate the intensity of life today?

As the world situation intensifies there will be more and more events of greater intensity presenting themselves for our attention, events that reach out to entangle the mind and the emotions.  Anchoring ourselves in our deepest values, and strengthening the alignment between the personality and the innate wisdom of the soul will help us live from a place of personal peace. As the next few years unfold, we’ll find it increasingly important to avoid being pulled off balance by outer events. A new world is taking form within us and around us, and it’s there that we want to center our attention.

Our path through this work is organic; it arises naturally as a progression of events – one follows another. While we have no map to follow, as we become more cognizant of the rhythms and patterns of this journey, we develop a path.  The ways we work in the world and our responses to the events of our lives arise in the context of the moment.  

Most of the time, we can only see the single stepping stone ahead of us.  We can’t see the progression itself, where it’s going.  And with experience, we become comfortable pausing on the stone where we stand, waiting until the next stone comes into view.  As we see the process unfold in this way, we come to trust the ground we’re standing on and our ability move to the next step.   

Because there is no map, we shift from an intellectual approach to an intuitive one based in trust. We trust the experience of being exactly where we are, comfortable or not, knowing we have the ability to take the next step when it moves us forward. 

When we move in this manner from one stepping stone to the next, there are many possibilities where the next stone could appear.  If we had a map of the stones laid out from beginning to end, there would be no choice but to follow that single path. The mapped sequence is static -- it only leads to one place. In this step-by-step organic process of movement, if factors shift while we’re standing on one stone, the next one may appear in a surprising – but newly appropriate – location. 

Going one step at a time and letting trust lead the way, we can end up exactly where life needs us to be.