"Waiting"  ©  2012  ~  acrylic by Carol E. Fairbanks

                      Give up your endless searching....

             

                    Lay down your map and compass

                    and those dog-eared travel guides.

                    Rest your weary eyes from so much looking,

                    your tired feet from so much hoping.

                   Lay down on the soft green grass

                  wet with morning dew, and watch 

                 as the tree heavy with pendulous pears

                  bends her long branches toward you,

                  offering you perfection in every sweet bite.

                                               
                                                                                ~ Christine Valters Paintner

                                          Ending the Endless Search

I love to be  active...to climb mountains...to work hard on completing creative projects.  It makes me feel alive..like I'm a vital part of the activity we call life.  I've tried a number of times to practice meditation by sitting quietly in silence.  My body seems to "shout" at me to work on something... anything!  And I argue back for it to be quiet and behave!  So the argument goes, until it becomes a screaming match.  Not wanting to begin the day with trying to discipline that "unruly child",  I call my body, I tend to avoid that stillness practice.  Maybe my inner fight is not just about shortening my "to do" list, but rather I am needing to escape that inner urgent voice that asks, "What if your heartfelt dreams don't come true?  What if what you are waiting for never materializes?  What if you never find what you are searching for?"  

During my activity, I watch the horizon for the appearance of a "ship" that is carrying my dreams.  I look for hints that tell me that happiness is sailing my way. This Cinderella-type of waiting is something I have always had contempt for, and I would deny vehemently that I am even remotely searching for anything in that way.  In junior high school, when we sang, "Some day my prince will come", I would roll my eyes jokingly and laugh, but inside I secretly wished for the materialization my personal "dreamboat"!

Through the years as I have matured, after moving through some learning opportunities,  I have come to accept that  I am not an island or a rock.  As much as I have admired the Vulcans on Star Trek  (especially Mr. Spock), who were not burdened with emotions, I can never be like them.  The truth is that I am a very sensitive person whose emotions are very communicative.  My imagination has always been overactive, and I have never ever been very grounded and linear in my thinking.  Part of my process of maturing has been to accept this flightiness in me and actually like it.  

With this said about me,  it's probably no accident that two of my favorite activities are hiking and art making.  Hiking, especially in nature, helps me to feel emotionally stable and grounded, and my art making gives my energetic imagination a chance to soar.  The more I actively participate in these passions, the less need I feel for a "Prince Charming" or anything that would "save" me from the nothingness I sometimes experience. Both my hiking and my painting teach me that what I am waiting for is not outside of me, looming on the horizon, but instead has always been within me.  I have chased this truth through studying variousness reliable sources, who claim to be a lot wiser than me, but I had never quite caught up with a real experience of that truism until I engaged in hiking and art making.  Maybe the real "Prince Charming" does not ride up on a white horse and sweep me off of my feet with words of love. And perhaps, what I am searching for can only be found through doing what I really love.  When I use my inner passions to reveal who I really am, a kind of "savior" steps forward to mirror back to me the beauty of my soul, not yet expressed in my life.  

So, I can lay down "my maps and my compass", and move my "weary eyes" from the horizon outside of me to the rich landscape within. I can shelve those "dog-eared travel guides" and put up my tired feet, because I can finally rest in the fascinating "home" of my true self.  On the table next my supportive easy chair is a bowl of luscious "pendulous pears" that are offering me that sweet life I thought I had to chase. And here it is.... asking me to be open and still enough to receive it.