Guide us to the Straight Path.
Q1:6
Walk until your head is clear. Walk until the shadows have lifted. Walk until your rumination gives way to contemplation.
Establish a rhythm with your pace. Lend your voice to a softly spoken litany. Speech affects the heart, both spiritually and physically. Maintaining a conversation or a song with yourself, with God, or with a companion will regulate and calm your heart. If you are unable to speak, you are moving too fast. If you prefer silence, remain conscious of your breath.
It should come easy. Slow down until it does.
Breathe as deeply as you can.
Consider your feet. Miracles of both stability and locomotion, each foot is comprised of 26 bones, 33 joints, and over 100 muscles, tendons, and ligaments. You were built for the trail. Trust your feet to keep you upright. Marvel at the imperceptible adjustments they are making at every moment to accommodate the crookedness in the path, the teetering of loose rocks, and the shifting of soil and sand beneath you.
Be mindful of where you are placing your feet. Honor them through your caution. They will reciprocate.
Note that the undulating landscape echoes your experience. You have lived long enough to appreciate the ups and downs. The effort and patience required to ascend will test your heart, but see in the approaching ridgetop that your work is not in vain. Remain steadfast. Take it as slowly as you need to, but don’t stop. Be relentless in your progression, placing one foot in front of the other, breathing fully and intentionally between each step. You’ve been through worse. Remind yourself of that.
Let the darkness in. Do not be afraid to feel everything. It will pass. There is rest at the top.
Enjoy the reprieve.
Carry food and water and replenish yourself. You are out here to learn how to care. Start with yourself.
And as you eat and drink, watch and listen. Even if it were your intention to be alone, you are not. All around you creatures are seeking their provision.
As you begin your descent, feel how your body is working to control momentum and maintain balance. The burdens of the heart have been lifted, though there is great seduction in this. We must remain vigilant. This is where people get hurt. Your hips, ankles, and knees will absorb the shock admirably, but only if you remain mindful.
Carry a map. A trail is proof that others have gone this way. Keep to the established path. While there may be temptation and even sound reasons to explore the unmapped areas that lie beyond, today you are hiking. Orienteering is for another time. For now, you are learning to trust yourself and the wisdom of those who have gone before. You are learning to encounter the sacred without testing it.
You are coming to understand that some things are for you and some things are not.
You are learning to optimize the resources you have and to find contentment in that.
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