I have no idea where I am going
the interim time
The spritual path: sometimes easy striding, sometimes amazing vistas. Sometimes unexpected directions…also getting lost.
Being lost
Are you in, or can you remember, a time when you have no idea where you are going?
I am, have been and for sure will be again. Resigning a post, separation, children leaving home and, looking forward 🫥, the process of dying.
Quite often being lost has involved loss – bereavement, retirement, unemployment, illness or injury. It can be sudden, or crept up on you, as perhaps a dwindled relationship, diminishing status, or fading health, for instance.
Changed circmstances take the map away.
Often too, it’s an identity crisis: who am I in this strange, new landscape?
Honest awareness
Some of you will recognise the title of this piece as the first line from a prayer by the US Catholic monk with Zen leanings, Thomas Merton:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going
I do not see the road ahead of me
I cannot know for certain where it will end
Nor do I really know myself…
Landmarks, maps and compass give nothing. Panic and anxiety prevent clarity. Then the realisation: I am lost, I have lost myself.
To acknowledge being lost is a big step. But, recognising you are lost, then accepting it: two amazing steps forward.
Sitting with it
Then it takes courage to dwell in this uncomfortable place, to not fix, and not make it comfortable.
I know I am very good at attempting to make uncomfortable places comfortable: food, box sets, scrolling, workaholism, plans – name your opiate of choice. Numbing can have its place, but it can only be temporary.
Interim time
Another spiritual poet, John O’Donohue, has a blessing-poem For the Interim Time. He likens this time of lostness to the landscape in the wan light of dusk:
No place looks like itself, loss of outline
Makes everything look strangely in-between
Unsure of what has been, or what might come.
In this wan light, even the trees seem groundless.
It’s hard to make any sense of it.
Wilderness
Lent is a time to step into not knowing. As Jesus went to the wilderness, so we might wander: no map out of it (that we are aware of), no shelter. There are hunger and thirst and wishful thinking. Marking the days with sunrise and sunset.
We go in, dropping who we thought we were, not knowing who we will be. And what a blessing this is: we ‘wild’. If we have courage, and we really let go, we might discover our true nature,.
John O’Donohue puts it so beautifully:
As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow your confusion to squander
thes call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might come free
From all you have outgrown.
And such a clue there: all you have outgrown.
Being lost, the interim time: essential to growth.
Faith
I’ve cited two Christian mystics. Merton’s poem is eventually about trusting in God’s purpose and his care for us, ‘you will lead me by the right road Though I may know nothing about it…you will never leave me to face my perils alone’
If you look at my Dartmoor picture, the sun is shining bright, beneficent and constant. The sun is always there, even when its light is wan or obscured. You might believe you are held by Christ, or another way of describing the ground of being. Or you might have a sense of innate resilience or faith in humanity or community. On the other hand, you might not, or might not have discovered or named it as any of these.
However wan or lost, know you are held.
Being transfigured
O’Donohue’s next and concluding verse reassures us,
What is being transfigured here is your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn.
And so the not knowing where you are going is painful, requires faith, and will lead to a new beginning.
Tell me
Would you be up for sharing a note about your interim time(s)? An awkward time of transition, and what might be emerging?
Yoga Nidra
is a practice for dwelling in the interim time. Join me this Friday evening, 28th February 2025, for nidra practice online. The theme is,
New Moon and Preparation for Lent: what seems like an empty night but is in fact fertile darkness, and the in between time of waiting
Summer Retreats at Viveka Gardens - rewild yourself
A retreat at VG is time out of space and time, a place to rewild yourself. Practice, be it asana or meditation, is also a place for rewilding and coming home to the true you.
I’ve specifically included a retreat for people in interim times, and to facilitate that transfiguration:
May 23 - 25 Transitions - yoga and coaching retreat
A three-day-two-night retreat for women to creatively find their way through life and circumstance changes.
Two more specific transitions for the phases of a woman’s life:
June 20 -22 Perimenopause Retreat - yoga and coaching retreat at Solstice
A three-day-two-night retreat for women who want to see this change as an opportunity to grow into the next stage of life with curiosity, creativity and consciousness.
August 1 - 3 Embracing Elderhood - yoga retreat at Lammas
A three-day-two-night retreat for women 55+ to explore how older and wiser plays out for you, and embrace your elderhood with positivity.
And once you are through transition, a way to vision what next:
September 19 - 21 Visions - yoga and coaching retreat at September Equinox
A three-day-two-night retreat for women to creatively find form and courage for a project and an aligned life.
The full list of Retreats in the VG Summer Collection
If you’d like to arrange a conversation about retreats or coaching, please be in touch.