Willingness: Becoming Whole Through Challenge
“Nobody ever said this would be easy, this process of evolving.“
The following poem by Rashini reminds me that I achieve wholeness by willingly traversing even the most challenging portions of the trail.
This is a poem for those moments we all reach at some point, when we each need reminding that the “only way out is through.” I find that both literally – hiking a steep trail, or portaging a canoe on a seemingly endless carry between lakes – and metaphorically - through both work and personal travails – I find success in two ways: accepting what is, and keeping one eye toward where I am going.
On a long carry between lakes, often through dense forest cover, accepting what is means I don’t fight my canoe’s mass pressing down into my shoulders. I move with vs. against my challenges. I keep my breath relaxed and low, stay fully present with my own sensations and each attentively placed footfall amidst moss-covered rocks, across fallen timber, or skirting the edges of deep bog.
At the same time, I keep my vision in mind: where am I heading, and why. This thread helps steady me and keep my going through every challenge. On a portage, this vision is ‘the first glorious glimpse of blue’ – that first sighting of water between trees that helps me know that I do have all I need, that I will succeed, that I will reach water once again.
We all will. With willingness, center, breath, and vision, we will all reach the water on the other side.
But Rashini says it better than I do…
There is brokenness
out of which comes the
unbroken,
a shatteredness out of
which blooms the unshatterable.
There is sorrow
beyond all grief which leads
to joy
and fragility
out of whose depths emerges
strength.
There is a hollow space
too vast for words
through which we pass
with each loss
out of whose darkness we
are sanctioned into being.
There is a cry deeper than
all sound
whose serrated edges cut
into the heart
as we break open
to the place inside which
is unbreakable
and whole
while learning to sing.
