Tag: maps

Featured

Old Maps

Clothing optional Hollyhock, Cortes Island, B.C.
 

“It is a strange and wonderful fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and at your fingertips outside you. It is an immense privilege, and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here.
Rilke said, ‘Being here is so much,’ and it is uncanny how social reality can deaden and numb us so that the mystical wonder of our lives goes totally unnoticed.
We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free.”

John O’Donohue   quote from Anam Cara

 

 Old Maps

Just over a year ago I posted one of my favorite Joyce Rupp poems   “Old Maps No Longer Work” on this site.

For reasons that are still a mystery to me, the link ended up at the top of the search list on Google for that poem. Every day since,  at least one person somewhere in the world read it on the site. The constant attention given to the piece prompted me to reread it many times over the last year.  Each reading took me deeper into understanding what it meant to be ‘off map’ or ‘mapless’.

As the decade comes to a close I feel compelled to let go of some of my “well travelled paths” with gratitude to where the twists and turns of life have led me but
now “It is time for the pilgrim in me to travel in the dark” and “wait for the stars.”

For the next year when I find myself at the inevitable crossroads we all have to face in life, I will repeat the following lines:

“The Map is not the Territory. When Map and Terrain differ, follow the Terrain.”

Wishes for a New Year of Peace and Understanding.

 

 “We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free“

©westcoastwoman 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

Question Everything (and then recalculate)

tumblr_m1zch3ev6n1qc0cxpo1_500

I read signs, official metal and wood signs, signs that randomly litter public places, anywhere they pop up in my field of vision.  These words, no matter how they are presented  inevitably consist of an agenda, something one of our fellow humans feels the rest of us needs to do or not do and often they make me smile. There are others that make me think. The messages that usually have me smiling are the “official” ones, those that have you questioning what consistent public actions could have led to the round table discussion that produced the sign.

I recently came across the sign below as I entered a trailhead near my house.
It was placed among a number of signs many of  which appeared to have been produced for those among us that have not been blessed with a lot of common sense.
But this one got my mind turning…….

img_0462

Full disclosure, I have in a past working life been a ‘authorized landscaper’ and currently tend a fairly large piece of property.   I can tell you that landscaping  is not something that happens on a whim.

The immediate question that came to mind was what could  possibly have happened on this ‘town controlled land’ that prompted this sign to appear? I had an image of guerrilla gardeners armed with shovels. rakes and a secretly produced site plan arriving as night fell, to do their dirty work. A green rebellion of sorts, but to what end?

How much of this ‘landscaping’ had been installed without ‘authority’ before complaints were filed, meetings called and finally a very official looking metal sign produced and erected?  If someone followed through after witnessing some suspicious activity and the culprits were caught, what would be the charge? What is the penalty for ‘unauthorized landscaping’? The question I would most like answered is could someone send them over to my property.  I am sure that we could work out some sort of non monetary exchange that would  satisfy us all.

Given the state of play on the planet at the moment I think the sign below might sum up how a lot of us may be feeling. This is a time of great transition and we are travelling forward into a global future that appears to be unstable bordering on chaotic.

Recently I found myself in an unexpected situation, the first word that came to mind was “Recalculating”  the echoing of this word in my brain sounded familiar, like that vaguely mocking voice that eminates from your GPS when you veer off your planned route.

Recalculate:   verb  to calculate again; typically using different data

In the world today “different data” is available to anyone who cares to take a look. Question is are you willing to examine it and then alter all or parts of the route you programmed into your internal GPS so long ago.

The ‘signs’ are out there……

istockphoto-926930330-612x612

Featured

OLD MAPS NO LONGER WORK

DSC_1680
©westcoastwoman 2016

Just this tonight, while I wait for the stars ………

a poem by Joyce Rupp

Old Maps No Longer Work  

I keep pulling it out –
the old map of my inner path
I squint closely at it,
trying to see some hidden road
that maybe I’ve missed,
but there’s nothing there now
except some well travelled paths.
they have seen my footsteps often,
held my laughter, caught my tears.

I keep going over the old map
but now the roads lead nowhere,
a meaningless wilderness
where life is dull and futile.

“toss away the old map,” she says
“you must be kidding!” I reply.
she looks at me with Sarah eyes
and repeats “toss it away.
It’s of no use where you’re going.”

“I have to have a map!” I cry,
“even if it takes me nowhere.
I can’t be without direction,”
“but you are without direction,”
she says, “so why not let go, be free?”

so there I am – tossing away the old map,
sadly fearfully, putting it behind me.
“whatever will I do?” wails my security
“trust me” says my midlife soul.

no map, no specific directions,
no “this way ahead” or “take a left”.
how will l know where to go?
how will I find my way? no map!
but then my midlife soul whispers
“there was a time before maps
when pilgrims travelled by the stars.”

It is time for the pilgrim in me
to travel in the dark,
to learn to read the stars
that shine in my soul.
I will walk deeper

into the dark of my night.
I will wait for the stars.
trust their guidance.
and let their light be enough for me.

by Joyce Rupp

https://womenofacertainagedotca.com/