When I think of life as this long wavy trail, I do often recall the times when I had to cross a bridge. Make a conscious choice to leave one world for another.
Leaving the corporate world for a life more aligned with what my soul was calling. Leaving a long-term partner or wife for an unknown destination. Going through my medicine man initiation. Every time the bridges were scary. I knew what I was leaving but never really knew what will be on the other side. Often the bridges had to be crossed with only faith in my hands and heart on my sleeve.
What are we leaving behind? Who is going to be there on the other side? What is ahead? How long will the crossing be? Do I have what it takes to cross? Will I turn around and run back to the familiar? Will the calling be strong enough to push me into another step in this new territory?
A few days ago I got to this very ancient and only traditional Inca bridge in the Andes. My fear of heights prevented me from crossing. Yet the experience of even contemplating the bridge, watching the caretakers of the bridge, and feeling into the hundreds of years of service of that bridge, left me wondering.
What is my bridge today? Am I even yet at the bridge or is this just another twist and turn in the path?
One of the ways we know we are facing a bridge is very often the rising of ancient fears, the complete unknown ahead, the rising resistance to change, and the heartbreaking choices that the crossing is asking of us.
I know you also had to cross bridges and maybe today as the whole world is being asked to cross a scary bridge you recognize yourself on this new precipice, facing potential death and potential rebirth. Questioning even the idea of moving forward and the energy, skills, and wisdom it will require to truly cross.
In Andean cosmovision, the bridges are represented by the Deer and the prayer of the North. The wind prayer. This difficult prayer of Unity invites us beyond the mind & Ego to transcend the deepest wound each of us (and humanity) carries, the wound of separation.
If we have traumas and early childhood experiences of not belonging this crossing can be even more challenging. Abandoning what is not perfect but yet not for us, for the unknown of a dream our soul so constantly is pushing us towards and into...
I sit there with all the unanswered questions. The doubts, but also the necessary slowing down, reflecting, and wisdom calling those times are calling for. Slowly. Gently. Even more slowly. Even more gently.
In that space, we find ourselves when at times of important choices, the capacity to allow the unknown and chaotic forces of the wild feminine to speak through dark nights of silence is a key condition for transformation. Another layer of discomfort in a society (and in me) that wish to know, wish to control, wish to hold onto some dying belief.
I know we will cross. One way or another. But I also aim to know and embody the silent pause, the composting of what is dying, to reveal its wisdom.
I will sit silently and will be weaving my prayers before this crossing for as long as it takes. Without any aim but to know what is true, and what is not. It might take a few nights, it might take a lifetime. It is all ok for those who love to weave in this sacred silence.
I see you there.
