There really wasn’t any sound at all. Just the sun inching out from behind Mt. Hood and casting a dusky haze like a natural snooze button over the forest, the highway, the nearby town of Government Camp and tiny Mirror Lake right below me.
As I sat there listening, the nothingness slowly filled with answers. As it always does.You know these kinds of answers.
It’s more of a feeling than a thought. Like knowing a truth. And once known, can’t be unknown, just ignored.
Perhaps this moment was why it was an immediate “yes” when my friend texted about going backpacking, even though I had barely been off the mountain for 24 hours. Or why my body woke up as the first bird chirped and scooted me up the trail by myself, even though my phone only had 10 percent battery left.
It was what must felt like. Just like Elle Luna describes about her own journey at The Crossroads of Should and Must (and in her book that I’m currently rereading).
All the tough, real deep questions I’d considered over the past few weeks, even during the two miles up to the top of Tom, Dick & Harry Mountain that very morning, came back to what I had discerned many times before.
Nuts and bolts stuff like family, kids, nature, writing, teaching, retreating and ultimately, what I was put on earth to do in this lifetime — to make spirituality accessible to all*.
Even though I felt “off mission” at the moment, I realized how many of my choices have been actualizing the calling. I noticed how imaginary the hurdles of money, time, space and vulnerability that Elle mentions truly are. I saw how “close to the trail” I am (so close).
So, the real question: what needs to be different this time?
I have to own it. It has to be more important than all the shoulds.
Yes to must. And no to everything else.
I sat in my tank top, leggings and sandals basking in the warm, reassuring feeling beneath the rising sun for a lot longer than expected. It was alluring — savoring the truth in all its ease, all its perfection — part of me wanted to stay there forever. But, I had already been there long enough.
And, at that moment, I must return to the campsite before my friend started to worry and my stomach got hangry.
May you do exactly what you know you need to this week, no matter what.
Love,
Jules
*As poetically described by Tiff, one of my friends and kindred spirits, who I think of as a real-life Ms. Frizzle.
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