It’s early morning, and the light beginning to fill my window is soft. The house is unusually quiet. Being a night owl, I’m rarely up at this hour to witness it, but today something nudged me from sleep, my eyes stayed open under sagging lids, and I listened. The hum of my fan offers a familiar white noise, delivering cool air that soothes my skin with a familiar tempo that can be hypnotic. There is peace here this morning. A kind of sweet softness that wraps itself around me before the world and myself come fully awake.
Lately, I find myself wandering, not just through rooms or routines, but through the landscape of my own mind. Ideas drift in and out like old Viking sailors navigating stormy seas, searching for a shore they can’t quite see. Some days I feel like the ship. Other days, I’m the ocean. Most of the time, I’m the sailor holding on to the central mast, weathered, uncertain, and still hopeful there’s land ahead, trusting, somehow, that I’ll know it when I see it. I will find the land (that thought) that eludes me as I sail through the rows of file cabinets filled with years of thoughts and memories.
There’s a strange beauty in not knowing what is ahead, what memory will surface to excite or challenge me. Ah, yes, a touch of fear rides those waves with me too. It’s the kind of fear that comes from unspoken dreams, trails yet to be explored, and the anticipation of all the versions of me still waiting to be lived.
My thoughts take me backward sometimes. I find myself opening old drawers in those file cabinets filled with memories, unsure of what I’m looking for but certain something important is tucked away in there. I lift dusty folders, scan faded labels and find moments I’d long ago forgotten, glimpses of people I haven’t thought of in years, their names hovering just out of reach. There is even a drawer full of ideas that once set my soul on fire.
It frustrates me sometimes; how slippery my memory can be. How one word, one phrase, will teeter on the edge of recollection and then vanish just before I can catch it. I’ve always had a memory like an elephant, I say. I remember birthdays, license plate numbers, the prepositions in alphabetical order from seventh grade English class. I remember poems from grade school and how my grandmother folded her napkin just so, in her lap. So why, I wonder, do these fragments hang just out of reach, feel so far away at times and pop into sight when least expected nowadays?
I trust they will return and they do. I will remember the thoughts I chased today, tomorrow, while walking down the hallway or folding laundry or tossing toys to Darby. That lost name or place, person or thought will appear, fully formed and right on time. That’s how it works, you know, the mysteries of time. The mind has its own rhythm. It retrieves what I need when my soul is ready to see it clearly.
This morning, I roll over and face the soft light and let myself wander. I give my thoughts room to show up and my memories the space to speak. I may not know the plan for today beyond the calendared appointments. I may not see the whole path ahead, but I’m still here, still searching, still sailing toward some beautiful, unknown shore.
And that, the cottonwood whispers outside my open window, “For now, that is enough.”
I wish you all sweet memories, beautiful mornings, and days filled with possibility and progress as you travel down happy trails.
Gallop on!
Please enjoy my Free “Meditation for Centering” MP3
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Vicki Dobbs is a bold and adventurous warrior walking a path of heart to manifest spirituality in everyday lives. She opens existential gateways for individuals to face their challenges and embrace these tests as the great teachers that they are.
Her goal is to see everyone walk in beauty and balance every day of their lives empowered by the voice of their own authentic truth.
Through Wisdom Evolution and Sacred Wisdom Workshops, Vicki creates opportunities for others to make deep personal changes through experiential classes, ceremony, sacred art and story. She endeavors to inspire others to create their lives intentionally. Vicki is an Inspirator of everyday awareness, an Instigator of spontaneous stories and a Connoisseur of Creativity. Gratitude and grace sprinkled with humility and humor are the medicine she brings to the world.
As an Elder, Teacher and Entrepreneur, Spiritual Coach, Ordained Minister and Crafter of Sacred Art and Tools, Vicki perceives life’s journey as an ever-upward spiraling ascension of the human spirit leading her to wisdom, wholeness and authenticity.
Her experience includes being trained in the Harner Method of Shamanic Counseling and the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition of Cross Cultural Shamanism. She is a Graduate Teacher and Mentor with the Lynn Andrews Center For Sacred Arts and Training and has been the Administrator and Writers Guide for Writing Spirit, the School.
Vicki is also an Artist of the Spirit Certified Spiritual and Energetic Life Coach, a Graduate Mentor in the AoS program and a founding member of HeatherAsh Amara’s Warrior Goddess Leadership Team and Facilitator of the Warrior Heart Practice.
Connect with Vicki here on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vickildobbsauthor