Thresholds and portals
Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray
from the straight road and woke to find myself
alone in a dark wood.
The first allegory of Dante’s Inferno. He was 34 when he wrote it. Unsurprisingly, like every coming of age story, I found myself in the woods, lost and paralysed by fear. After all, for the last few decades, there had always been some sort of signpost indicating what I had to do next - a methodical approach to life that would suffer no fools. I felt the call of the wild and unknown, the forest path, but that meant deviating from the straight road with a visible and picturesque horizon.
I had everything that my early-twenties self dreamt of, yet every night for an entire year, an unexplainable emptiness engulfed me. I rang my therapist, asking her “what’s wrong with me?” I worked hard during the sessions and outside the sessions - reading, thinking and journaling like it was the end of the world - a countdown timer ticking louder in the background as the months passed. 3 months, no answer, 6 months, still nothing.
But funnily, I just needed time. Time, sinking its fingers into my life like dough and kneading continuously until truth was ready to be seen. I surrendered into the ‘not knowing’ and flowed clumsily.
It was clear that I cannot will myself into an answer, things that matter reveal themselves slowly. In hindsight, this gradual unfolding helped me grow in my capacity to be honest with myself.
I created a lot of space to be with myself. I see now that there are no right or wrong choices, only what is true and choosing what is true is difficult - forget about measuring every choice against a cost-benefit analysis, and pros and cons list, or seeking advice from others. No one can hear that small voice but yourself, and choosing to honour it always leads one down the untrodden forest path, where I took my first step on shaky grounds, limbs caving into each other, my mind still playing catch up. I took a short trip (photos below) to acquaint myself with newly found bearings. A cycle of death and rebirth. Not just that day, but every single day. Learning and unlearning, seeing and unseeing, since instinct is first in this new landscape.
Gradually I began to develop an intimacy with myself, learning to listen to that quiet tune and nurturing it with so much grace and patience like learning how to walk or a new language. I am a child again. Gladly a fool - falling and scrapping my knees - slightly bruised and smiling.
I still don’t know much at all, certainties and uncertainties both resting spaciously on my open palms. A gentle breeze arrives, the forest path has led to a vast expansive clearing. I tug at the quivering strings of not-knowing, trusting that its unraveling connects me to something larger than myself and more mysterious than I ever imagined.
2 poems below to christen crossing the threshold into another portal:
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
- David Wagoner, “Lost”
There are no rules now.
You who bore me, taught me, raised me, Mother, Father, friends, lovers,
You are my brothers and sisters now.
All that you taught me to help me in life
Is no longer true, unless I find it so.
Your truths for you, mine for me.
But I, being some part child still,
Grieve for the missing parents to be no more;
Nor to be a parent myself.
No longer even a child of God but co-creator.
This is frightening.
This is glorious.
- Sarah Bishop
