Departure

The journey begins

We all live in landscapes we have constructed from our experience, the company we keep, and what we read. We spend our lives exploring them, looking in corners and filling in gaps. Sometimes, though, we have to go right to the edge of what we think we know and step over into what we don't to see what might be there. To learn new things, think new thoughts, and expand our horizons.

In my own small way, that’s where I find myself today.

As so often, David Whyte has words to capture what I am sensing.

Finisterre
The road in the end taking the path the sun had taken, into the western sea, and the moon rising behind you, as you stood where ground turned to ocean: no way to to your future now except the way your shadow could take. Walking before you across water, going where shadows go, no way to make sense of a world that wouldn't let you pass except to call an end to the way you had come, to take out each frayed letter you had brought and light their illumined corners; and to read them as they drifted on the late western light: to empty your bags; to sort this and leave that; to promise what you needed to promise all along, and to abandon the shoes that brought you here right at the water's edge, not because you had given up but because now you would find a different path to tread, and because, through it all, part of you would still walk on, no matter how, over the waves.

David Whyte. Essentials. p83

There will be a free open Zoom call for subscribers at 6:00 pm UK on Wednesday, 6th September.

Maximum 18 places.