Traveling Lighter

I was talking with the mother of the friend with whom my daughter did her search and rescue training. She said, I'm so happy that Kelsi accomplished this, because it means I know she can go anywhere. She knows how to make shelter, and she knows how to find her way. It has been an important part of the whole process of letting go and having her move out on her own.

I think it's true. The two things I need to know how to do are find my way and make shelter. I can think of that these days as I practice traveling lighter.

I'm traveling lighter by leaving behind a couple of big things that used to define me to myself. One of them is idealism. Growing up, I felt being idealistic was heady and lofty - it gave me a feeling of deep purpose. I couldn't imagine not wanting to be that way - it gave me something to think about, and a way of feeling good about myself, at least some of the time. I think people told me at times that being idealistic maybe wasn't such a great idea, but I didn't understand them. Now I'm looking at it differently.

As I parse out what it is to be idealistic, I define it as having a picture of the way things should be, and then trying to live out my life as close to that picture as possible. The problem with it is the assumption that any picture I could have in my head would do any kind of justice to the wonderful, convoluted, earth-smelling intricacy that is life. Holding a picture like that as my first reality would lead me to miss most of the crucial and alive things that make up each moment, the surprise bumps and the secret hollows, and all the things that ask to be noticed and responded to in the moment they present themselves to me. It was highly presumptuous for me to think I could predict any of that before the moment, and it prevented me from having the humble and supple readiness to meet life as it came.

So I've left my idealism behind - left it behind in favor of faith in the goodness of life as it presents itself in this moment; left it so I can expect to be surprised, and expect to find, in the present-moment-giving of life, everything I need to navigate the moment with grace.

The other thing I'm working on traveling without these days is criticism. It's actually a related thing: criticism is about thinking that I have a picture of how things should be done or how people should be, and then measuring them according to my picture and complaining about the things that don't match. Now I remind myself that God is the Mind of other people, and I am not. Primal goodness tells them how to be, compellingly. I can't, both because I can't know what's right for them from the inside, and because I'm not the voice inside them which speaks from their center and moves them with poise and balance. But God is that voice, and God is here. My job is to be humble enough to notice what God is doing, in me and in everyone.

The two things I need to know how to do are to find my way and to make shelter. I find my way by noticing what's here and how the law of goodness is manifest here and now. I make shelter by welcoming everyone I see into the warmth of being loved.