We know we can never truly foresee what we will encounter. We may meet with a day more or less the same as the one which preceded it, or we may discover a delight, a heartache, even a tragedy, we never saw coming. We just never know. And still we walk on.
How we walk on, though, is largely up to us. We can fashion ourselves as unwilling travelers, walking hesitatingly or in outright fright into what we anticipate as hostile territory. Or we can move forward in a different way. We can step into that wilderness as avid explorers.
Walt Whitman, the most romantic of voyagers, put it this way, "Darest thou now O soul, walk out with me toward the Unknown Region...all is a blank before us, all waits undream'd of in that region, that inaccessible land."
With the choice of the word darest, Whitman highlights the courage needed for such an undertaking. And yet the overall tenor of the poem, as with all his writings, is the excitement, even elation, that comes from entering life wholeheartedly, eager for whatever unfolds.
The first few words of the poem also offer a hint as to how he manages to pull this off. He directly addresses his soul. It's irrelevant that Whitman's poem seems to be speaking in the voice of the soul calling to the far more timid personality, rather than the reverse.The point is that his words convey a recognition that he is not going into unchartered territory all on his own. He has a companion.
We may have our field guides. We definitely have our past experiences. And if we're lucky, we also have living, breathing humans who can witness our becoming and with whom we can share our befuddlement, our sorrows, joys and terrors, and our surprising discoveries. But ultimately it's just the two of us, our souls and our psyches, who must journey together through the wilderness.
Luckily the soul, whether you define it simply as some essential you~ness or a thing eternal, comes with apparatus fundamental to a vibrant journey. For over 40 years, I have sat with countless individuals as they've walked into and progressed through their own personal hinterlands, and I am continually astounded at what the soul knows, how it guides and whispers its secrets.
It is true, souls speak a different language and do not always offer the kind of specificity our personalities would like. They guide through intuition and a felt sense of things, requiring of us a quiet receptivity if we wish to receive their messages. Yet if we open ourselves to them, make room for their moment~by~moment nudgings amid the busyness of lives, we will find them ever available. Always true. We will know where our next footfall must land, as well as sense when that foot needs to stand stock~still for a bit.
I am reading the Mythago Wood Cycle by Robert Holdstock, a many~layered and quite dense fantasy series that requires a bit of work from the reader, with poetic language that defies a left~brain understanding of what the heck is going on. But I love it, despite my tendency to be a rather lazy reader.
I'll soon finish the second book, Lavondyss, Journey to an Unknown Region, a title that accurately describes each day of our lives, every one a pilgrimage into the inchoate, the unprecedented, the not~yet~encountered. There are two passages I'd like to share. First, "All things are known, but most things are forgotten. It takes a special magic to remember them." And this one, "To each his entrance to the realm. To each his gate."
There is, indeed, a special magic that allows us to remember what our souls already know. And there can never be a one~door~fits~all entrance into that realm where such magic speaks. Our gateways are our own, growing from the substance of our lives.
Both Whitman and Holdstock remind us that it is through willingly immersing ourselves in what life brings our way that we become more ourselves and find a richness of experience that we'll never get through playing it safe. Whatever life brings our way, it offers an opportunity to choose our response. And in choosing, we not only can grow and deepen ourselves, but learn to interact wisely with life itself. In allowing life to change us, we grow better able to shift the life around us for the greater good.
And here we stand, as always, at the next threshold on our path. We have our wisdom and our guidebooks, living things that must be engaged and allowed to grow and deepen as we grow and deepen ourselves.
So pull on those cargo pants and bush jacket, many~pocketed to hold all your accumulated knowledge and the maps of others that may~~or may not~~inform your journey. Strap on that pith helmet, letting its gentle weight awaken the wisdom gathered throughout a lifetime.
And step forward now into that undream'd of and inaccessible land, as the avid adventurer you know you can be and already are in the depths of your soul.
I shall meet you there!
Leia
For the full text of Whitman's poem, click here.
And if you like your poems sung by beautiful voices, click here:
