Spiritual Retreat - Part 4

As you know I took a spiritual retreat a few weeks ago. I drove to Michigan from Delaware to see a close friend (my spiritual family). I had a rough time getting there (see Spiritual Retreat - Part 1), but my friend's house was beautiful!

The small talk with my friend was great! We had not seen each other in about 8 years. We actually met here, on the internet, from a mutual friend when we were back there into coming out of religion. We connected so well. We understood each other's heart from the beginning and until today and tomorrow too! :-)

We eat lunch out, we shopped, we eat lunch out, we shopped... we watched a great movie called Smile. I started a book I had saved for the trip - The Call, Discovering Why You Are Here, by Oriah. It is the last in a series of three books: The Invitation, The Dance, and lastly, The Call.

It slammed me in the face!

Here is the Prose that the book is based on:

The Call

I have heard it all my life,
A voice calling a name I recognized as my own.

Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper.
Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency.

But always it says: Wake up my love. You are walking asleep. There's no safety in that!

Remember what you are and let this knowing take you home to the Beloved with every breath.

Hold tenderly who you are and let a deeper knowing colour the shape of your humanness.

There is no where to go.
What you are looking for is right here.

Open the fist clenched in wanting and see what you already hold in your hand.

 
There is no waiting for something to happen, no point in the future to get to.

All you have ever longed for is here in this moment, right now.
You are wearing yourself out with all this searching.
Come home and rest. How much longer can you live like this? Your hungry spirit is gaunt, your heart stumbles. All this trying. Give it up!
Let yourself be one of the God-mad, faithful only to the Beauty you are.

Let the Lover pull you to your feet and hold you close, dancing even when fear urges you to sit this one out.

Remember- there is one word you are here to say with your whole being.

When it finds you, give your life to it.
Don't be tight-lipped and stingy.
Spend yourself completely on the saying.
Be one word in this great love poem we are writing together.


© Oriah Mountain Dreamer, from 'The Call', Harper Collins, 2003

In this book Oriah Talk about how some of us are at war with reality. She says, "Your story will be different because the particulars of your history and your personality -- the things that have shaped how and why you fight your war with reality and therefore how you stop the war -- will be different from mine. but if you suffer at all for the world or yourself, if you spend one moment resenting, resisting, trying to hang onto, or deeply desiring to change what is within yourself or in the world right now, you are fighting with reality... fighting reality -- even or perhaps especially the reality of who and what you are -- is a losing battle."

So, here it is in black and white. It is short and concise. It is easy to understand. I am at war with reality.

So many things have hurt me in my life and they continue to happen... I don't understand most of them and unconsciously go over and over them in my head trying to find some place to put them. I strive to try to understand them... but you know what? There may never be a place to put them... I may never understand them and one day that will be ok.

Namaste!  

ps.... war is over...

pss... I have been posting infrequently because I have been struggling through some personal things and sometimes I do not feel I have anything worthy to say.... but when I do.... I post!