We are all on a sacred journey in life – sometimes it can take the prescribed path for us dictated by society this is where we go to school, go to college and then onward to work or university and then into our careers. It all seems so clean cut, we plan which way to go and we head in that direction.

However life often has other plans for us, its seldom a straight line of plan goal reach goal, next plan goal reach goal that we anticipate – things happens to us in life – we have relationship troubles, sicknesses, money worries and even existential crisis’s which take us off track, we make poor choices and sometimes we are victimised by others.

Sometimes we may wonder often around midlife what are we doing all this for – or we decide we need to rest and would happily wish not to do anything or we settle into a daily grind were we give up in our lives and just do what we have to stay afloat.

In old anglo saxon lore there is the concept of the wyrd – the wyrd is the personal fate or destiny of every human on the planet. Its shaped at birth and its like a rope, or thread which is flexible and winding. The peoples of old never tried to make a straight path out of life, they knew life had many twists or turns and this thread which we follow is a web of life connected to every other human being on the planet, also all the birds and animals and the environment too.

In times past they honoured the journey by walking the labyrinth – the labyrinth goes round and round but not in a spiral it often doubles back on itself before going round till we meet the centre and from there go back out into the world.

The christians also adopted this practise to illustrate the journey back to the heart of God and then once we have found this to go back out into the world in service. So shamans too journey as part of their practise, they go within themselves along the great royal road of the unconscious and meet the spiritual beings and archetypes we find in our psyche.

The inner journey we make helps us to complete our outer journeys in the external world. Maybe we meet an animal, or go to an exotic location and receive a gift, these are all pointers from our unconscious mind to help us with our winding path in life.

Its the inner guidance which we are so often lacking when we follow or wyrd or personal destiny – we may find ourselves sick or lost and not be sure where to go for guidance – we may receive a teacher or mentor or helps us but often we may be alone on our road, we may have guidance from a Great Teacher like Master Jesus – we may receiving a guiding Spirit such as the Holy Spirit as a helper – but ultimately its our life and our choice how we live it, through the winding wyrd road.

In quero shamanism they say we are all on the medicine wheel, in different stages of consciousness which I have outlined in my previous post on Christs Journey – so here too we may receive a map of the actual journey which is not at all linear. We may through art work make a vision of our lives, with vision boards each year, trying to take matters of the web of life into our own hands to shape wyrd as we see fit making the best out of whatever circumstances we are in.

However we choose to live our lives, know that the road is long and winding – the meaning of Journey means so much both the shamanic journey and the journeys we take through life – I wish you all a good journey where you complete life, silver haired and wise – reaching the heart of the labyrinth and then out again in service to our world. Our world needs everyone to have completed good journeys and to have shared their wisdom and insight which they learnt along the road.

The PATH

Our path is a winding one with no end in sight
It takes many passages round and round like soul flight
Its a labryrinth really that runs through our heart
We try to express it in poetry and our art
Sometimes we are in solitude all alone
and sometimes with friends who can sometimes moan
about our precarious ways as we journey
There are no locked doors always only keys
Journey on through the darkness as we find the light
Here or there in a teacher or in a book we cannot fight
The meandering way that is our wyrd
Inside we find and image or a guiding word
That spurs us on in service to ourselves and our world
We received congratulations for the things done well hurled
Up in a ball with insults too when disaster strikes for me and you
But this serves us well to reach our goal on the wheel into
Which we all dance where we are all one in unity
Alone with us or them life is beautiful in its simplicity
We serve our roles well in archetypal symmmetry of the divine
Mirrored in us all, I wish “you” well because you are mine
The path is ever winding its certainly not a straight line