The Open Door and Your Path

Yesterday I received a rather different story from my surroundings. While visiting my mother's home, I sensed as if someone was in the courtyard, just outside her front door. The door was open, but when I looked over to it from the living room, I suddenly got the message quicker than I could blink. From standing in the living room, since the door was open at the time, I could see only one wall of the courtyard from my vantage point. In order to see completely outside the doorway, I had to actually step into and across it. Why was this so obvious to me? Well, on my journey to understanding myself, the world, my place in it, and my chosen path better, like everyone else, I always ask myself 'how' do I get started, such as 'how do I find funding for my book', or 'how do I find the perfect job', etc. I have learned that indeed there is no 'how' for asking this question over and over again without taking any action towards our goals is simply denying that we already have the answers inside. As Robert Frost said "we dance around in a ring and suppose while the secret sits in the middle and knows".

The open doorway at my mom's was trying to show me that we are always shown the door, the next step to take, but we have to actually step into and go through the doorway to see the whole picture for that step we have just been asked to take. Only then will the next open door present itself, the next step. But most of us don't take that first step because we have learned to not trust ourselves or the world.

An open door always gives us hope, a little more light on our path and that is all we need to walk effortlessly and trustingly on our journey. The 'open door' may be a co-incidence or some synchronicity in your day, but it is an energetic doorway showing you a possibility. The choice to step through it is always up to you.

Wishing you peace and many light-filled open doors on your journey.

Clear Reflections (NGT)

September 2006
Big Sur, California
River Inn

Sitting next to the Big Sur river, my gaze settles on a very quiet spot. The water is very low at this time of year moving very slowly, but in this area is almost completely still and clear, almost like a small calm pool. Due to the calmness in this spot, the reflection of the trees above are almost completely clear as well and because of the subtlety of the image, I notice that the trees appear only slightly distorted in the reflecting water. This makes me realize that if the water were perfectly calm, with absolutely no movement at all, the reflected image of the trees would be completely clear and undistorted. And perhaps I would not have noticed the subtle significance of the distortion.

As we journey through our life, trying to understand what is real and what is not, we find that illusions are many. Mostly we find that our mind creates a myriad of illusory realities. I say this because, in all of the stories I’ve learned from nature, I’ve always realized they were simply mirrors of my own inner story, so the less clear the story, the less clear most likely was my own mind. Like the calm or turbulent river, we cannot see our own image clearly, especially our inner self image, while our mind is in turmoil or is creating torbid currents which create a distorted story. We’ve all heard of the ‘zen’ way of being and perhaps the clear, quiet stillness does indeed have the most to show us as it reflects the clearest picture of our true selves.